Sonnet #2: Angie Stegall

A moment’s escape from the fall,

From the fruitless loves before,

I thought I found in you all

The things I was looking for,

For in you I finally had a chance,

Or so you made it seem,

You smiled and laughed as we danced,

But all this, all this was but a dream.

For you, too decided that your claim

To my life and memory,

Would be to place upon the sorrow list your name,

Placed there for shattering my revery,

Your kind do nothing more than make me sick,

To twist and use love as a trick.

On Angie

Then

I was not completely true to Bekah for all those years. My devotion, as I now know anyone’s would have after six years of fruitless toil, discovered another girl who perhaps offered a respite from the constant let-downs. She was by no means beautiful, I would say, but she was very open-minded and had an excellent sense of humor.

However, I was wrong in searching for that respite. I debated about placing her name upon this list, for I really hold no grudges against her, as I really was too busy doting on Bekah to really give my whole heart to her…..but she did do a terrible thing.

She tricked me. She started dating me so that she could dump me…and she did it for money. There is nothing quite so shameful….and one would think only to her…but to me as well. It is not something that instills pride to know that you are the kind of terrible fate that people will only endure for money or for some other gain. It is humiliating…..and it was just that for me.

Once more…like so many times before and after….I was used and humiliated by the world I grew up in. Ah…but she wasn’t really love……not like Bekah…not like so many since…..and I cannot hate her because she has never had it easy herself…..

Now

She is once more a thought that never flickers into my head. I long abandoned hope for her to rise above herself and the very low-brow, trailer-trash friends that she so invested her time with. She never did. I didn’t envy her, I didn’t hate her, I felt sorry for her. She could have been better but she succumbed to the will that our town has……it pushes you towards a group and tries to make you a member…..

It almost always works.

To Angie

There is nothing I really have to say to you. You did apologize all those years before for what you did. You apologized profusely, which is something more than Bekah ever did or ever will I’m sure. For that there is a great deal of relief in me….that sometimes the things people do to me they actually regret…..that it isn’t something that they would do over again.

I wish you luck whereever you are. I wonder if you would have broken me more if it wasn’t for Bekah. Perhaps there is a thanks I should have given to her for at least that. I really don’t have much else to say….