TWISTED, A SESTINA OF LOVE

Everything always seems to be twisted
Nothing is the way we’d expect
If I want one man, I get another
I should be happy and get what I like
If I can’t be with the one I love
I should give my love to the man I’m with

It’s better to give my love to the man I’m with
Than to try to love someone who will twist
my heart; a strange phenomenon, this thing called love
The one I get is never who I would expect
him to be. Do you think we ever get what we like?
It’s a big mess, first one lover then another

He’s not endeared to her, he wants another.
She wants him and not the one she’s with
It’s so confusing, no one gets who they like
Mind is like a monkey, grasping and twisting
from one branch to the next; never where I’d expect
It to be especially when it comes to finding love

I sometimes wonder, is there true love?
Or could it be one man as well as another?
Who can fill the gap, meet my expectations?
Can I meet a love eternal and stay with
him forever to an end with no twisting
fate? Can he stay with me and like

what I do? Or should I expect that he’ll only like
What I don’t like? Should I freely give my love
Without worrying that our love will twist
To hate? Then instead of him I’ll seek another
Man who I shall repeat this cycle with
until it’s finally over when we least expect

I should realize it’s stupid to expect
Anything to turn out the way I’d like
and in the end be with who I want to be with
And the one I love would just love
me, Only me and wouldn’t want another
just me unless he became mean and twisted

Twisting my heart, then he’d expect me
to find love with another like the one before who I liked
With whom I was so happy before things got so twisted

© JL written in 1981 at Columbia U writing class