memory banks of your past

I forgive you for not needing me.
I forgive myself for thinking I needed you to(o).

Roughly removed from your future
Suddenly withdrawn from your present
I'm deposited in memory banks of your past, only your past.
Hurt and disoriented - it happened so fast.
We still live in the place where we were best friends
And my footsteps echo like strangers behind me
Your ghost lingers in my shadow beside me.

Our brains inhabit separate bodies
But when our minds embraced, mine was changed.
I cannot erase the memories we made
My human nature ceaselessly craves
Continual contact, repeated exposures
to the very same images of your face
in this place we both deeply know
or undiscovered spaces we'd continue to grow...

I forgive you for not holding on
And I forgive myself for not letting go.

I'm accepting that we were never right for each other
Yet grateful for the chance to know one another
A wave and a nod when we're just passing through
The other hand holding someone else's, more true
Moving on doesn't make this less real
Just means that it's over and it's time to heal.

lovely for you

This city (a small town, really)
with the tall trees calling me
drawing me here over years, yes, years
of calling, me not knowing what
this place had in store but
you've restored me here, and
here I am while the waters are
flowing, reflections are showing me
who I am today. And I pray
Lord, let me make a difference here,
and let here make a difference on me.

Pieces that pulled me apart were
pulling me here and
pulling me near to you, I see
clearly now in this sky blue view that
you knew me, truly, all along. And my song is
Lord, let me make a difference here,
and let here make a difference on me.

The stars tell the story of my journey, and
my soul is being made whole, re-made with all
the pieces back in place in ways I forgot to fit
together in the stormy weather. I never noticed
"lonely" and "lovely" are only one letter apart.
Said I never noticed that
"lonely" and "lovely" are only one letter apart.

And my heart you've been integrating the
disintegrated fragments I feared had dissolved.
Turn my "n's" into "v's" and Lord
let me be lovely for you. You've
turned my "n's" into "v's" and
recreated me lovely for you, restored me, brand new,
free and complete. And my heart beat repeats,
Lord, let me make a difference here,
and let here make a difference on me. Said,
Lord, let me make a difference here,
and let here make a difference on me. Please,
let me make a difference here,
and make me who I'm purposed to be, I plead,
Make me who I'm purposed to be.

Sonnet for Emilia

“As Desdemona takes her final breath,
I cry out as by shock and grief I’m wracked -
I, Emilia, rage at my mistress’ death.
With fiery tongue, I scathe Othello’s act.
His weapon turns on me, in his gripped hand,
For proving that my friend was not a whore -
Now fearlessly defiant will I stand
For her pure soul, for appetites before.
Yet horror grips me when I’m made to see
That cursed handkerchief I can’t give back -
That was the role I played in Iago’s scheme.
I’ll do my damnedest to set things on track.”
Nevermore to do her husband’s bidding,
Dies at his hand, to her dear friend lies singing.

(Since this was for a creative project assignment in my Shakespeare class, I'll also include my write up, in case you're interested:) While I enjoy trying my hand at all kinds of artistic skills, I identify as a poet more than anything else. I first studied sonnets when I was in middle school, but I didn’t get so much out of them then; they seemed stuffy, rigid, obsolete. Honestly, this semester was the first time it clicked just how beautiful and powerful Shakespeare’s sonnets are. My own writing consists mostly of free verse or some kind of pattern of my own design, so I thought writing a sonnet would be a fun challenge. I chose to write a sonnet for Emilia because she is my favorite character of all of the plays we read. There are other more complex characters or funnier characters, but Emilia is the one I identify with the most due to her fierce loyalty that is sometimes compromised by her desire to please everyone. I love the parts where she stands up for women in general, and then for Desdemona in particular, but I also sympathize with her betrayal with the handkerchief. I tried to pack a lot into this one sonnet, so I hope it is successful. I wrote a first draft as it came to me one night when I was trying to sleep, but later noticed that my rhyme scheme was incorrect; it was a little tricky to fix, but I think it still works. I liked the idea of letting Emilia speak for herself, but I thought the concluding couplet would be better spoken by a different narrator, so I put the bulk of the sonnet in quotes. In a way I’m responding to Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder’s “Whoso List To Hunt” by this reversal - in his sonnet, the quoted portion is the couplet, and the words are not even the woman/hind’s own voice. I also tried to only break the iambic pentameter when it would make sense for emphasis.