Poetic Interlude VII

I beat hope:

With stones and rods, hockey sticks and ropes

With eggs and branches and belt buckles

Until it picked itself up and gave me a bitter look

And whispered "Do it yourself, then"

And limped off.

I flipped the bird at its back

And yelled at the sky and spit on the ground

And cursed everything that was ever good to me.

"I don't need you anyway" I muttered,

Meaning I didn't deserve you anyway.

Like a battered wife, it might have stayed

Had I given it anything between the beatings

But I never was very smart

Never very good with words

Never sorry.

Hope wormed itself back in, sweetly

Like a woman's voice when she knows you're mad.

It squirmed into my cracks and infiltrated my hardness

Like a plant through the pavement.

Hope waited,

Waited

Waited …

And then hit me upside the head with a crowbar

Behind a dumpster (fitting),

Pulled two molars and a thumbnail,

Put out a cigarette on my left cheek,

Kicked me twelve times in the gut and left me for dead.

I have dragged myself to this ER

In the hopes that you can put me out of my misery.

This is the last time I'll ever love anybody.