The Burning Family Bush

Hello, my name is Despair, have you met my family? My parents, Denial and Martyrdom, have been married for many years, and nowadays they bounce around inside a grand monument built to honor (on display) the trials of so many decades together. I have many siblings; first, there's Ignorance, he's right jolly if not a little selfish, but not in a spiteful way. He is hard not to love, but can be a tad tiresome. My sister Hate is next in line, and her name says all you need to know about her, at least for now. I came next to the family, and I have not the time nor the will to detail my faults. It is enough to say that I am incapable of self, and appear to need to be needed in order to survive. Something of a work in progress for me is the shaking of that self-imposed mantle. After me there was Loneliness, but he is gone now, a victim of himself. I wonder if Loneliness ever imagined being missed as badly as we miss him now. It strikes me now, how ironic it is that he has caused so much of himself for others. Loneliness is followed by The Bouncing Ball, but that is not his real name, we just call him that because he can only seem to be up or down, and travels rather quickly and without warning from one to the other. He can be fun to play with, until he bounces away from you, seemingly ever-unwilling to return. Not long after The Bouncing Ball came Submission, eager as she is to please others. It's sad, the fact that she doesn't see herself as fine the way she has been in the past, and so feels the need to adapt to others. The last of the litter is Drama, and her name follows her wherever she goes, but only because she demands that it does. She must feel that without her name she would be somehow less of a person, and more of a blind spot in everyone's eyes, and maybe she is right, but we don't remember; it's been years since she traveled alone.

Hope springs eternal, as they say...