on the other side of hope

it's dark here
where I am held
in a stranglehold,
waiting for something,
for anything,
to get me out;
it's dark here
where walls
push and shove,
folding in,
releasing me,
as I inch my way through;
it's dark here
but it's safe,
when there is
nothing here
to know,
to do or become,
where there is only
one sacred breath
holding me
as I hold it,
as I am readied
for a world
that I can only
live to know,
the first cry
of a dying
and a becoming
I can feel but never own,
and always, always held
in the depths of this navel;
on the other side of hope,
is hope.