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Sunday, May 12, 2013

Letter #1: Walk Away

If you are reading this, then somehow you,
my love, have broken through my fortress wall.
I never once thought someone would pursue 

this heart of mine.  Yet here you stand enthralled
and I am at a loss to understand
how someone -- anyone -- could ever fall

for me.  Yet here you are with heart in hand.
I would have thought by now I'd have deterred
your interest.  So now I must demand

you turn and walk away without a word
just hand me back these pages -- leave before
you dig inside my soul where pain's interred.

You've reached the point of no return; explore
beyond this line and risk destroying me.
Still here -- *sigh* -- foolish man, I so adore.



A note on form:  On Thursday, dVerse Poets Pub FormForAll threw out a challenge--to write a terza rima.  Six syllables shy of completing the third stanza I crashed.  Instead I turned the pages of my notebook and toyed with a sevenling.  But I found my way back last night ending off the stanza and adding one, before turning out the lights.  This afternoon, I tacked on the last stanza and rounded off this piece.

Inspiration for this piece:  I stole inspiration from a series that I had hoped to write, but never made it passed letter #2.  The series was called Letters from D. Prest.  I decided to maintain the title of the first letter, which is roughly what this piece is based off of.  I am aware in doing so I leave this open for additional pieces, but after getting sucked into ten acts of a ballad after a similar challenge, I'm not sure I'm naive enough to allow myself to be tortured by another frustrating form.

4 comments:

Brian Miller said...

smiles...very cool letter....made me smile...isnt it those that will cross those lines...in a good way...unwilling even to let us deter their love...yes those we do adore...smiles.

Jennifer Wagner said...

It's so hard to let love in sometimes! This is sweet...and I enjoyed your process notes as well.

Mary said...

Sometimes the idea of love brings with it mixed feelings. You did very well with the terza rima form!

Jeff said...

Excellent form here, and a nice look at tormented love (when is love any otherwise?!).