My boyfriend loved it, but didn't 'get' all of it.
A 'Sonnenizio' on a line from Kim Addonizio's Sonnenizio on a line from Drayton.
In this piece, I try to neatly draw an understanding in the container of the poem an acceptance that we will trigger each other, but the pulling of the trigger belongs to us.
Through the writing of the poem I explore what it means to keep coming back; to reassure, to be affectionate, to love through our reenactment of threat. The ‘parts’ are different versions of ourselves from the past. These versions can be smaller / younger versions of us or experiences that have formed an in-print of how we are perceived by others. The parts could be traumatised parts of us, lonely parts of us, insecure parts of us or selfish parts of us. They could be vulnerable parts of us, loving parts of us, missunderstood parts of us.
The ‘come’ is present because it’s a word I’ve chosen to repeat from the line I took from Kim’s original poem (pictured below).
For those who don’t know, the sonnenizio is 14 lines long. It opens with a line from someone else's sonnet, repeats a word from that line in each succeeding line of the poem, and closes with a rhymed couplet. It was invented in Florence in the thirteenth century by Vanni Fucci whose subject was usually on the impossibility of everlasting love.
Here I’ve turned it on its head with the subject on the healing nature of love…I say F*CK YOUR RULES.
The Poem
It’s hopeless, come, we’ll kiss and part forever,
coming and going is part of our togetherness.
We’ve come to get used to swinging apart,
braced for our oncoming bang of parted bodies
together again to welcome all parts of other.
Our fear, in partnership, comes off the tongue
to protect but provokes parts held back to come
forward, come held breath, come apart from
the I AM survival become. No parts can threaten
us even parts of night that come spare you
of stirring me apart from sleep but come,
come stir your restless parts through me, we
part enough already, our days come in days at
a time that partition us, it’s hopeless, come into me.
The original
You’ll see I stole the last line of this poem for the opening of my poem.