#142: This School Year Has Not Been, Thus Far,

On this second day of National Poetry Writing Month, compliments of the prompt for the first day on the http://www.napowrimo.net website, a poem of negation, a poem that describes a thing in terms of what it is not:

This School Year Has Not Been, Thus Far, 

soft and cuddly,
a baby blanket;
warm and inviting,
the embrace of a friend;
easy, easy like
a Sunday morning
or any number of
other schmaltzy
but irresistible
Lionel Richie tunes;
a slow dance with
Gillian Anderson;
a romp, a joy ride,
a ticket to paradise,
a frolic, a jaunt,
a walk in the park.
Three quarters
of the way through,
it can only get better,
I tell myself,
hopefully, not only
through its cessation,
its culminating
conclusion, but
rather, through its rally,
its redemption, its
hidden possibility,
its potential to be
not quite the sucker
puncher it has proven
to be thus far.

Because the alternative
to hope is despair
and I don’t play that game;
I am armed to
the teeth against it
and I refuse to go out
kicking and screaming.