Ballad of Broken Hope

How silly of me to expect too much of someone once more, who didn't even know what I felt for him, and for getting too attached to soon, dreaming he would fulfill my last broken dreams that you didn't want. Hadn't I learned my lesson

the first time?

Maybe I was happy too soon, after years spent pining in silence,

watching shadows stretch and deepen where you once stood,

like twilight folding its dark cloak around the empty spaces you left behind.

I saw a kind face, gentle as moonlight on still water, and dared to want to love him,

to cradle hope like fragile glass, trembling beneath a sky too vast to hold it.

His smiles were soft, like sunlight brushing through leaves - warm yet distant,

echoes of a quiet warmth I thought I might feel,

a connection whispered on the breeze that barely stirred the surface of my soul

for he was gentle like moonlight soothing and pleasant,

while you were warm but burning, dazzling yet corrosive

the light that would penetrate the skin and go right through,

and I clung desperately, forcing the impossible bloom

from barren ground cracked with years of forgotten prayers.

What else could I do when he was the only one I had left?

Was it too horrible to want to hold onto something that came to me,

when I had lost everything I ever possessed?

For you no longer lived in my world, and if you didn’t exist,

there was no comparison, no shadow to compete.

So in a single week, I was “in love,” or so I told myself -

a one-sided admiration, an ache named hope that walked on water,

free and weightless, skimming lightly while my love for you dived deep

plunging down the trenches of an ocean where no one else would dare follow.

He was gentle, careful with my cracked edges,

someone I believed incapable of hurting me,

like a quiet moon that watches but never reaches -

soft silver light that never burns, never scars, never touches the skin.

But how foolish I was, weaving my grief into a blanket

to warm a heart that was already too cold,

hoping it might heal in his quiet presence as the moon heals the earth.

I almost hear you scold me,

“How could you trust another so easily with the pieces I shattered?”

The answer is simple; I had no other way.

When I met you, I was but a blank slate -

no wounds to bleed upon, no scars to expose.

Now I am stained, and I give my shattered heart away

to anyone who would stoop down and pick it up

from the cold, cracked floor where you had thrown it without a glance.

And still, in my dreams, I see you - young and blushing,

just nineteen or twenty, when you liked me,

when maybe, just maybe, I was something worth keeping,

perhaps the only time I had been truly loved.

What did I do wrong?

Except carry hope like a fragile flame,

offered to someone who never truly knew me,

who never saw the depths beneath my surface.

I cannot blame their fading,

how laughter once filled the room,

how company was once welcomed,

then slipped away like smoke on the wind.

Perhaps it is that everyone has too many choices,

and no one wants to settle except me and you -

half-insane, outcasts in a world that never understood us.

If I had known you wanted me,

I would have lived my life clinging to the memory of your touch.

But knowing you forgot I existed -

what else is left but silence?

I sit alone, not fighting the stranger who came and smiled,

who said they liked my words - words you hated to hear,

because they hurt you more than I ever could.

So I sleep with a heart heavy as stone,

losing the spark of hope I found only briefly -

because it was all an illusion, feeling silly once more.

Everything was an illusion - except your love,

your hatred, your leaving me alone in the dark.

No matter how much I wish to want someone new,

my hope drifts like water skimming glass-

while my love for you dives deep, beyond the ocean's trenches

where no one else would follow.

Maybe, in years to come,

I’ll still see your ghost in my dreams,

cry in your arms,

tell you of the hurts to come,

because I know people are fleeting,

rarely strong enough to form the connections I crave.

Who else could understand my pain if not you, the one who hates me the most?

And when I cry, I hear your cold words that you whispered

before you were gone, you said no one would ever love me,

that I was worthless, and only you could bear to love this miserable soul

and that I had let you down, shattered what little we had.

And when he disappeared, though I felt a flicker of connection,

though nothing had gone wrong,

I wondered: was that what you meant,

when you said I deserved to be punished,

left alone for a lifetime, to wander in grief’s endless shadow?

And when you mock me in my mind, as you always did

how foolish I must be, to trust and ‘love’ someone new so soon,

when I had loved you for five long years and even before,

how you sneer at my heart, as if I betrayed some sacred vow.

I wish I could look into your eyes,

and tell you softly,

I only wanted from him what you refused to give me-

a pat on the back, a warm hug, a smile that didn’t cut like glass

but you threw me to the ground,

would have strangled me too if you could.

If only you had kept my heart with you,

I wouldn’t be wandering now with open hands,

but still you mock my pain in my dreams

shouldn’t you be happy for me,

wishing for my peace, my fragile hope?

If you can’t love me, why not wish someone else does?

It’s not easy for me to trust others, not like I trusted you,

but now I have nothing left to lose,

and you don’t exist in my world anymore

just as the girl you knew has ceased to be.

I know I expected too much from someone I barely knew,

but it was only because the one who loved me for years,

the only one who promised, refused to love me anymore

and said I should be punished forever.

Is that why he left?

If you never wanted that flicker of happiness,

that fragile hope I dared to feel again

then if I truly deserve this punishment,

I will take the pain once more,

if it brings you peace.

He goes on with his life, unaware that for just a few brief weeks,

he'd touched my foolish lonely soul,

offered a fragile spark of hope,

a fleeting happiness after years of grieving someone else,

and yet, unknowingly, he took that hope away-

perhaps cursed by the one who never wanted to stay,

or bound by some silent prophecy,

but still, despite the pain,

he let me cradle that fragile hope,

and now I will whisper my farewell to it,

if it hurt you somewhere somehow,

for I am loyal to the one I love,

even when that love is a one-sided song,

even when it fades unanswered in the quiet dark.

© 2025 Inaba Tarek