What More Needs to Be Said?

I had read Shakespeare’s sonnets

and watched cumming’s leaves fall,

yet still had not felt

any emotion at all

Eighteen, forty-three?

Juliet, barely thirteen at the time of her fall

Dickinson’s carriage carried a cold comfort

and Burns left his red rose white

Wilcox spoke of love’s language

Was she right?

Then soon consumed by my own thoughts

But not smitten; just spite

We have to look inside ourselves

to see why we are lonely

When I peered inside

I saw me only

We cannot love until we grow ourselves

a barren soul, solely

The words were never for them

they were mine from the beginning

How one grows can not be changed

and blossoming first is not always winning

I needed to discover that

loving yourself is not sinning

So whatever is done [despite what’s been written] is done by me only,

to quote cummings,

My actions, my words, my doing, my darling