The girl I used to know;
Of course, I miss her so;
And now the pain still grows;
As the days, they go and go.
This girl, grieves and grows;
Far from me she goes;
Off with whomever she chose;
Wherever, I’ll never know.
And now I must let go;
From all I can’t forget;
So I can find what’s best;
And to leave the rest.
For I truly know
This one must go.
This sonnet was not my first option as a second project for this class but I was not sure of what to do and I had a hard time coming up with ideas to write or make my project about. I decided to look back at Shakespeare’s sonnet, “My Mistress’ Eyes” and write my own. The only idea I really had for this was to write about the last relationship I was in and how it is still effecting me today. This is a bit embarrassing to just throw out into a class like this but I also did some research on how poetry and writing can help with your emotions and such. One part of a break up that messes with many people is how it effects their identity from that point on as stated by the authors of The Dark side of Relationships, state, “Thus the break up destroys part of each partner’s social identity, leaving him or her to wonder. “who are my friends”? What is my life now? Where do I fit in?” (Spitzberg, Pg-1941). Having part of your identity taken stripped away can be traumatic for many people as those previous feelings can stay with someone for a while leaving them unmotivated or unfulfilled. Being separated from someone that you were around all the time is very hard and it is a test of how you are with yourself and how willing you are to show up for yourself everyday and continue to do what needs to be done weather that in the gym, at work, or for school. In a poem by Collin Jerome he writes, “Don’t remind me, Of the things, Said and done, For there is nothing, You or me to, Say or do, To mend us” (Jerome, 1-7). These first lines of the poem honestly represent how I feel from this relationship as not matter how much I would like to see or talk to her I know that it will only hurt more and not be worth the time. Although there is a lot I would like her to know if the opportunity came to tell her I do not know how I would react as it is easy to say I do not want to talk to her when I can only assume she has no intentions of seeing me again. I think this is an important subject because it can allow people to write our their feelings that they may not be sharing to anyone else, giving someone that relief of getting their feelings out into the world even if they are just on a piece o paper or even just said out loud alone. I would say that it was helpful for myself to write this sonnet because I have not really told anyone how this has actually made me feel recently and it was nice to write it out. I can not say that I learned anything new about what I feel but I do think this was a good idea for my project as it was something I have experience with and it has been a constant thing on my mind so I did not have to go digging very far to begin writing. I would recommend that anyone else going through something similar to try this or at least just write out your thoughts and you may be able to see how intensely you do or do not feel about whatever your situation may be.
Work cited
Conte, J. M. (2016). Unending Design: the forms of postmodern poetry. Cornell University Press.
Jerome, C. (2012). Relationship Breakups . Issues in Language Studies, 1(1)
Weber, A. L., & Cupach, W. R. (1998). Losing, leaving, and letting go: Coping with nonmarital breakups. The dark side of close relationships, 267-306.