Thoughts of a Pessimist
I swallow bitter black bean water
looking at the lame, leaning willow.
I wonder: should I set flame to it?
The willow with cracked
and bleeding bark
outstretched its branches to
plead in a mesh of green flurry:
“Save me from being a dog’s piss pot.”
Knowing the disdain of my thoughts,
I gave one last look of pity
before walking my golden retriever home.
Hannah O’Neil
Hannah Ruth O'Neil is a Quitman High School graduate from Quitman, Mississippi. She is enrolled at Southern Miss as an undergraduate English Licensure major. Hannah is currently working on her undergraduate research for her Honors College thesis, "Poe's Melancholic Poetics," where she examines Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" and how it enters the cultural discourse of melancholy in Antebellum America.