Hope Is Not a Bird, Emily, It’s a Sewer Rat Hope is not the thing with feathers That comes home to roost When you need it most. Hope is an ugly thing With teeth and claws and Patchy fur that’s seen some shit. It’s what thrives in the discards And survives in the ugliest parts of our world, Able to find a way to go on When nothing else can even find a way in. It’s the gritty, nasty little carrier of such diseases as optimism, persistence, Perseverance and joy, Transmissible as it drags its tail across your path and bites you in the ass. Hope is not some delicate, beautiful bird, Emily. It’s a lowly little sewer rat That snorts pesticides like they were Lines of coke and still Shows up on time to work the next day Looking no worse for wear.
– Caitlin Seida (American poet, b. 1989 (?))
