#8 Hope is a Sewer Rat

(and hope is a thing with feathers)

Hello!

I’ve always wanted to be a pessimist, I think it would make things much easier. But even on terrible days, I find myself, almost frustratingly, looking for a silver lining. Which made me really appreciate this poem by Caitlin Seida comparing hope to a sewer rat, and written almost as a response to a completely different poem on hope written by Emily Dickinson (which I personally did not enjoy much).

Hope is a Sewer Rat - Caitlin Seida

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.

---

And if you’re curious, here is -

“Hope” Is the Thing with Feathers - Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.