AUGUST

AUGUST

Last Hope - Paramore

“I don’t even know myself at all.
I thought I would be happy by now.
The more I try to push it, I realize
Gotta let go of control.”

2nd Death Anniversary to my late father.

August arrived not as relief, but as aftermath. July tore everything apart; August forced me to sit among the ruins. By then, I no longer recognized myself. The version of me who once believed effort guaranteed stability, loyalty earned security, and time given would be returned—that person felt distant, almost fictional. I thought I would be happy by now. Or at least numb. Instead, I was still unraveling.

Paramore’s Last Hope became the sound of that unraveling. It didn’t romanticize pain. It acknowledged confusion, exhaustion, and the quiet defeat of realizing that pushing harder no longer works. Control—something I clung to desperately—had to be released, not because I wanted to, but because there was nothing left to hold.

“It’s just a spark, but it’s enough
To keep me going.
And when it’s dark out, no one’s around,
It keeps glowing.”

This was the line that kept me breathing. I was still hoping—irrationally, painfully—that out of the blue, someone would appear. Someone who could explain. Someone who could answer the questions that haunted me every day:
Why was I removed? Why did a decade-long income disappear without a word? What did I do wrong—or what did they refuse to tell me?

That hope was supposed to be my last. One final attempt to reach the right people, to communicate, to understand my status not just as a worker, but as a human being who gave years of their life in good faith. Instead, August doomed me further. The pain didn’t fade—it deepened.

“And the salt in my wounds
Isn’t burning any more than it used to.
It’s not that I don’t feel the pain,
It’s just I’m not afraid of hurting anymore…”

These words cut deeper than anything else. Not because the pain was gone—but because I had grown used to it. The wound was still open, but the sting had become familiar. That realization was terrifying. Pain had stopped being shocking and started being routine. Ignoring what happened didn’t protect me; it only let the salt sink deeper, corroding whatever strength I had left.

Still, I clung to Last Hope—not as optimism, but as endurance. Hope, in this sense, wasn’t joy or certainty. It was longing. It was refusal to completely collapse. It was believing that even a weak spark, barely visible, was better than total darkness.

“Every night I try my best to dream
Tomorrow makes it better.
Then I wake up to the cold reality
And not a thing has changed.”

This became my August ritual. Dreaming of clarity. Waking up to silence. Again. And again. And again. Each morning confirmed that nothing had changed—no answers, no resolution, no acknowledgment. Just the same unanswered questions echoing louder with time.

This song became more than music. It became companionship. I played it more than a hundred times—not out of obsession, but out of survival. I needed to understand what Hayley Williams meant by calling something so fragile a last hope. And slowly, I realized it wasn’t about being saved. It was about continuing despite not being saved.

August taught me that hope doesn’t always heal. Sometimes it simply keeps you alive long enough to face another day. And for now, that spark—however small, however tired—is still glowing.