The Purpose of Fire.
by Jason Nelson
I‘ve seen hope. Not in the eyes of children, or in some wacky over
used metaphor, rather I have seen an
actual, physical hope. It’s not a place filled with broad clean streets
and gas stations closed on sundays. There aren’t
pictures of hope in glossy magazines circulated through national
subscription services. Hope isn’t a mineral or animal,
a liquid or gaseous excretion. There’s a women, I can’t tell you where,
who makes hope. Her fingers don’t bleed
when she creates, like those who make inspiration. She reaches no
transcendental state, like the man who manufactures
tolerance and the occasional batch of hurried excitement. In fact, like
all facts, she, this women who builds hope, finds
her task boring and predictable. The exact process for making and the
chemical composition of hope aren’t exactly secrets,
as much as they are just uninteresting lines of words and awkwardly
connected syllables, easily forgotten. She dearly
wanted to be a veterinarian, working with cats and dogs and cats again.
But then dreams aren’t meant for hope, she so
often repeats while methodically assembling hope after hope after hope.