It’s Day One of NaPoWriMo!*
Today’s prompt: “write a self-portrait poem in which you make a specific action a metaphor for your life – one that typically isn’t done all that often, or only in specific circumstances.
My offering:
Dodge Ball
An odd game, dodge ball.
I learned to play as a child,
in a windowless, cramped gymnasium
that smelled inexplicably like old wet dogs and
burnt rubber.
Unless I missed the finer nuances,
the gist of the game is hit or be hit.
Two teams at opposite ends of the court race to the center line
to acquire as many weapons — er, bouncy balls – as they can,
return to their respective territories.
then lob their missiles indiscriminately at one another.
You try to get out of the way or, if you can,
catch a missile and shoot it back at the enemy team.
Once hit by a ball, you’re “out”
and spend the remainder of the game
on the sidelines.
When all of one team’s players are “out,”
the other team wins.
I have learned, over time, that
the real way to win at dodge ball is to choose
not to play anymore.
What Rhymes with Stanza? 
an excellent conclusion (K)
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Thank you.
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Real food for thought in this.
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Thank you.
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Ha! Great. We had a similar game, called “Between the two fires”, but it was played with only one ball. It could get painful. I didn’t care about hitting anybody, but it was good to learn the catch the ball.
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Yes, even for soft rubber balls, they could be painful. I prefer basketball, throwing the ball TO someone, not AT them.
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Yeah! B-ball is my game too. 🙂
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