Villanelle # 15

In January, I will explore the style of the Villanelle. This form of poetry has a lot of rules. I am normally a rule-breaker, so I take up the challenge of pirouetting across this restrictive dance floor with a degree of trepidation. Villanelle # 15 I will call Never Enough.

My first love is poetry. I played with rhythms as a child as a favorite toy, writing line after line and verse upon verse down in a notebook my mama gave me. The words became undecipherable squiggly lines dancing across the page.  I remember sitting on my Uncle Harvey’s porch, making up poems only I could read. I learned to write real letters after I started school. That’s when my adventure with poetry started. I found myself in a dance with a fickle dancer. As soon as I got the steps right, the beat changed, and the singer sang a different tune. COVID-19 and retirement have given me the gift of time to explore, study, and capture the essence of poetry, making all its different moved on the page.

The rules I followed writing Villanelle # 15

The rules for creating a Villanelle are simple and straight forward. This style of poetry must have 19 lines and five stanzas. The closing stanza has four lines. Also, line 1 gets repeated in lines 6, 12, and 18. Thus,  line 3 gets repeated in lines 9, 15, and 19. There are so many rules and so little time.

Never Enough

It took a while for me to process and learn

I was never going to be enough

If you stand too close to the fire, the flame will burn.

Hustle in the middle of a whirlwinds churn

 Boisterous bellows breathe and huff and puff

It took a while for me to process and learn

Your approval was something I could never earn

Adopting a thick skin brittle and rough

If you stand too close to the fire, the flame will burn.

Lingering too long in a place so stern

Feeling the rejection in your subtle rebuff

It took a while for me to process and learn

Still, there were days when my heart did yearn

For the courage to be bold and tough

 If you stand too close to the fire, the flame will burn

Discovering my best option was to remain taciturn.

Then one day I decided to call your bluff

It took a while for me to process and learn

If you stand too close to the fire, the flame will burn.

Who is Molly Shea?

Molly Shea is an accomplished fictional short story writer from Indiana who writes short stories and novels about a fictional town called Tecumseh.  To read more of her short stories and adventures, click here.

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