Shakespeare wrote over 154 sonnets.  I’ve just written my first sonnet and I’m feeling no need to write another one ever again.

A sonnet is a poem, more often than not romantically themed, which is exactly 14 lines long.  Each of these 14 lines has exactly 10 syllables, and works to an ‘abab cdcd efef gg’ rhythm.  Basically, if you never paid attention in your english classes, it means that every other line rhymes except for the last two as sonnets are finished off with a rhyming couplet.

So maybe it’s because I don’t like rhyme, maybe it’s because apparently  I really like words with 3 syllables or maybe it’s just because I’m not William Shakespeare himself, but I actually found writing a sonnet insanely impossible.  I’m certainly glad that I tried it, but I don’t have any intentions of attempting anymore any time soon.  To me it feels very forced, it doesn’t flow and I’m pretty sure it abuses the beauty of the english language on a number of occasions.  There are so many changes that I want to make to it but I can’t, because then it would cease to be a sonnet and would merely become another poem.  Also I am aware that it is severely underpunctuated, but poetic grammar is not my forte.  Sonnets obviously don’t contribute to my destiny, whatever that destiny may be.

Nevertheless, I present to you “Sonnet The First”(Shakespeare didn’t title his sonnets so why should I?):

Embracing this quick moment as our own,

Safely around my life your arms are furled

Security like I have never known

Briefly saved from the perils of the world.

 Exquisite eyes searing into my soul

Caterpillars changing to butterflies

Your warm body luring me like a black hole.

You were waiting to trigger my demise.

 Alone on the slope, toe to toe we stand

Waves silently wash the shores behind you

Snuggly entwined, free from social demand

Only people in the hemisphere, we two.

 There was the moment that I wouldn’t miss,

Fleeting and perfect, here was our first kiss.