Poetry from the Pit

Hope Won’t Die

Not for lack of trying…

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Sometimes I really want to kill Hope.
Not yours. Not his or hers,
Not that woman, over there, named “Hope” —
Who names their kid “Hope”?

My parents used to laugh,
As I tripped, tall and clumsy,
Over my own two feet. “Good thing,”
They’d say, “we didn’t name you Grace.”

Or Hope, or Patience, or Prudence,
I thought, but never said aloud.
Such virtues are not mine, but Hope…
It flutters like a hummingbird
From the pit of my despair.

I lay traps — sticky, dark and toxic—
Laced with anger and annoyance. And yet,
It comes at me, comes at me, comes at me —
Relentless in its cheery optimism.

I glare at it, willing it to drop dead.
Secretly, it kills me — but so long as Hope lives,
There can be no love ‘twixt me
And my betrothed: Acceptance.

So long as Hope breathes within me,
Acceptance reeks of Resignation,
And Resignation might as well be Death.
It is a loveless marriage of convenience,
And Hope, thank God, is hard to kill.