Tristan Robert Lange

This Woeful Day

I see myself,

Myself I see.

Who am I?

Thou art better than me.

Here I am,

I am here.

I face the world,

With many fears.

Can I love?

Love, can I?

Will I learn to love,

Before I die?

Do I hate?

Hate I do.

Can I control fate

Before I hate you?

Am I stupid?

Stupid I am.

I better grow wise,

Before I am damned.

I am too bold,

Too bold am I.

I need to be sensitive,

I need to cry.

Can I be loved?

Loved will I be?

If you permit me,

To share my love with thee.

So, here I go,

So I go here.

To live in loneliness,

For the rest of the year.

Away with me,

With me away.

Banish my soul,

From this woeful day.

Tittu

Poet’s Note:

For Throwback Thursday. Written circa 1996, at age 16. In my earliest poetry, I was deeply influenced by old-world verse and Elizabethan language. By the time this poem was written, I was beginning to shed those influences for a more modern voice — though, as you’ll see here, the old world occasionally slipped back in.