My Holiday Anxiety

Alone, elderly, widowed, 

the family all scattered —

what I dread about Christmas

is the kindness of rescuing friends …

but refusals would seem

not only rude, ungrateful, but weird.

So, false polite thanks as they drag me

from sweet Pagan solitude. 

Actually, I did tell the friend who invited me this year, 'I don't really do Christmas.' But she said, ' Wouldn't you just like to come for a nice Vegan meal?' Put like that, it did sound nice, and I accepted happily.

This poem started out to be a sijo, but I needed an extra line, so I'm calling it an extended  sijo.

Written for Friday Writings #157: Holiday Anxieties.

Deadly

You've caught me dead to rights,

busy cutting out all the dead wood.

Well, look, they’re a dead loss, 

every one of them. They’re dead to me!

You’re dead right – I’m better off

without those old, deadly bad habits!

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a sijo – one of my favourite forms to play with. I like to write them as three lines and then break those into six. The Poem a Day prompt was to write 'a dead poem.' And suddenly we're very near the end of April! I decided just to have a bit of fun with this one.