I think reality is typically both—hopeless and hopeful, depending on the angle and how much agency one has or can enact on said issue. Life isn’t black and white—it’s often more complicated, multifaceted, multidimensional. This is meant to reflect that—both the hopelessness of human tendency towards violence and decay and the hopefulness one can have that in realizing it, we will stop our endless cycle. it’s like an unspoken question, will we realize it or continue w/ destruction of our own species/fellow humans, and the natural world?

Thank you for the explanation. I'm trying to read it a little differently, but my mind keeps going to the hope hopelessness thing.  Might just be how I view specific conflicts.

It’s a metaphor for (1) the tendency for violence in society—the constant conflict that perpetuates throughout human history due to minor religious/political differences, (2) the exploitation and cruelty that humanity enacts on the world, natural resources, life, and fellow humanity, (3) a discussion on climate change & how humanity tends to focus on our differences which leads us to not effectively, collectively address what is now an impending climate crisis. There is no hope, only a realistic reflection on the state of our self-imposed problems caused by our selfishness and contradictions, e.g., “eternally hoping for peace but planning for war”.

Cool poem. When I read it, I found my mind separating it into the lines that conveyed hopelessness and hope. The hope seems like it's more of a small plea or cry for help in the middle of the poem. Then at the end the final phrase "nihilistic cycle" feels like what the author is experiencing at that point. My brain almost wanted more of the hopeless statements to come before that last phrase to build up or in this case spiral down to it. Maybe create a distance between the hopeful statements and the final phrase that really stands out to me. Just a thought hope you are doing well.


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if violence were the answer,

we would have arrived a long time ago.

here we are rolling around

in our own piles of faux

everything.


eternally hoping

for peace 

while planning for war,

constant contradiction—

we represent everything we abhor.


What do we have to lose, why not 

approach a different angle?

this mess is going to take forever 

to untangle.

If we can agree on one thing, 

can we agree on our shared survival?

We all die alone, 

isn’t extinction the ultimate rival?

humanity’s course seems set 

an accelerating self-imposed descent

this perpetual, self-destructive, nihilistic cycle.




[1](https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/xg88ee/never_written_a_poem_but_felt_like_i_had_to/iovnfip/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=ios_app&amp;utm_name=iossmf&amp;context=3)[2](https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/xgrn75/bedtime_confession/iovpete/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=ios_app&amp;utm_name=iossmf&amp;context=3)

cycles