Villanelle

This form is one I've tried more often than any other fixed form, maybe because the repeated lines suggest the sort of obsessiveness that poetry necessarily involves, for me. The problem is: how can you write lines that are meaningful yet versatile enough to last the whole poem? My solution here is to write on a pretty universal and recognizeable topic: lost or unrequited love. The two repeated lines are a bit ambiguous, and suggest the sort of ambivalent mood of a half-regretful, half-nostalgic speaker, looking back on mistakes and missed opportunities with a mixture of regret and irony.


Villanelle for the Headstrong and Heartbroken

How can you grieve for what you hardly needed?
It’s much too late. Just lose and let it be.
You never know which way the heart was headed.

Some good advice was not meant to be heeded.
I wouldn’t show the world my jealousy.
How can you grieve for what you hardly needed?

I almost thought that we must be related—
Resemblance was the only thing to see;
You never know which way the heart was headed.

To give myself was to become depleted;
My love was always more than intimacy.
How can you grieve for what you hardly needed?

Fighting for you, I might have been defeated,
Or worse yet, made to woo an enemy.
You never know which way the heart was headed.

Despite it all, our lives might have been wedded
One afternoon, when you asked after me.
How can you grieve for what you hardly needed?
You never know which way the heart was headed.


Does the mixed usage of "you" (meaning both everyone, and the significant other) confuse irreparably? It's something I tend to do a lot, and can find no way around. Here I like the way it gives the option of having the last lines addressed to her, not just to the ether, or to myself. But I'm not sure the situation is clear enough to the reader.