Photo by Imansyah Muhamad Putera on Unsplash

Not A Sonnet

A Poem About Risks

Something soft and sweet about a cage:
Curled, nestled behind bars, buttresses
Of metal holding me up — I know
Not to colour outside the steel lines,
Not to think outside my iron box,
Love the ropes that tattoo knots on my
Skin, easier to be unheard than
Unloved, safe in my little prison,
Where I can watch the world weep and mourn
Its memory, nurse the grief in me,
Define life as four walls and a locked
Door and not ask “Who am I?” — except…
A cage could never hold a free-verse poet.

Standard Shakespearean Sonnet:
- 14 lines
- iambic pentameter (10 syllables)
- rhyme scheme: four quatrains (abab…) and a couplet (gg)

“Not A Sonnet”:
- 13 lines
- 9 syllables in each line
- no rhyme scheme