Incremental Poetry ~ 17 Lines

The Freedom to Live

Her life had overturned, become a sort of hell;
The devil lost her soul, but sought her mind to claim.
Once happy, now ensnared inside a secret cell,
Played by her tormenter as if it were a game.
She cried out for help, but it did no good to yell;
Instead, she assayed the inner voices to tame.
With truth too cruel to bear, she made herself a shell
And lived inside a dream—survive, her only aim.

Seasons passed as reality lay gagged and bound,
Replaced by fantasy, which lacked vitality.
In mercy, there it was that one day she was found—
A man called Friend burst her irrationality.
She hated him at first. Truth weighed her to the ground;
But he stayed by her side, fought hell’s brutality.
In time she came to know a friendship pure, profound.
Gone the dream, free to live life in totality.

Shattering dreams can liberate reality.

Copyright © 2018 Abigail Gronway – All Rights Reserved

Welcome to my series, Incremental Poetry, where each week the featured poem will be one line longer than the one I share the week before. I have no idea how long I’ll keep this up, so we’ll just have to wait and see. Thank you for stopping by.

About the Poem:
I will not lie. This is a difficult verse form. If you are going to write one, may I suggest that you begin with Line 17, then write the rest. And don’t forget that your d rhyme must rhyme with the last line. (I had struggled through both stanzas, only to realize that I had not rhymed the other d lines with Line 17, so I had to start the second stanza over again. Hopefully the end result was worth the extra effort.)

Scansion:
Lucubration
Copyright © 2012 Amanda J. Norton (the form, not this poem)
2 octave stanzas followed by a single line
The title must be 5 syllables.
The final line must be exactly 5 words, 12 syllables, and must be in italics.
Total length: 17 lines
No set meter
Syllabic structure: 12 syllables per line
Rhyme scheme: abababab cdcdcdcd d