Encounter.

Let me introduce myself...my name is Hope.
I am no more than an illusion, an elaborate distraction...
In fact I am an empty chalice that has yet to overflow.
A vine that bears no tangible fruit.
And yet..Yet you will make bedfellows with Hope in your  earliest years.
From the first crushing disappointment,
The pain and desolation that comes with the loss of a loved one.
And perhaps the most chilling  realisation of all.
The realisation of the horror of humanity that threatens to permeate every fibre of  being.
Awakening to the agony that is the human condition.
As with all ailments we seek to find a cure.
A way of negotiating this ugly world in which we find ourselves.
A protection..a talisman from the depravity that surrounds us.
So hope is  born....nurtured from cradle to grave by each and every one...
As without it the pain would become intolerable. 
A poison that creeps until there can only be loss of reason, 
A hopelessness and despair so profound that it is intolerable to bear.
 Leaving only an eventual plummet into the abyss.