Hubris – Jennifer Peloso

Try as I might,
I can’t cut Hope out of me.

I take scissors
and snip off my fingers
like a little girl
mangling her paper dolls.
And I find
that it satisfies
the tyrant in me.

I pluck off my hair, too,
One by one,
from my head

To test the follicles,
extracting the Hubris,
the Hope,
from their stems.

But new hairs begin to grow,
As soon as they are plucked,
and Hope still bleeds through my fingers.

I cut the blood-flow
with popcorn and Netflix.

But, still, it remains.
Still, it flows,
burns,
infused
into the bloodstream.

Festering. Coagulating.

I wish there was a pill
for Hope,
‘cause that damn infection
just won’t die.
It resists all antibiotics,
all pain-inducers,
every cure-all I’ve ever tried.

I’ll wrench it out of me, yet,
with tools.
The latest news report,
perhaps,
or my inbox,
full to bursting
with elegant-worded souvenirs
of all my failed poetry.

But, what’s this?
I’ve sent one off, again,
another poem
dropped into electronic oblivion.

I push forth
like the damn fool that I am,
like an insect, attracted to light,

Like a sheep
sucking at the teat
of optimism.
Ingesting gulp after gulp
of the gleeful poison.
It shrivels my organs,
plagues me with illness,
but it never quite kills me.

Can’t scratch it,
can’t purge it,
can’t sweat it out.

It seems this pixie-dust
is part of my DNA,
twined through organs,
pulsing through synapses.

Try as I might,
This Hubris – this Hope,
it doesn’t go out.

Jennifer Peloso

Tigran Demurjian
I’m an aspiring photographer born and raised in San Francisco. I find myself compelled to document the expansive change our City is going through. In the blink of an eye things disappear, and most are worth remembering. My work can be found here https://www.instagram.com/de_murjian/.