Teenage Melodrama

     I don't do things by half-measures. Well, okay: I don't love by half measures. When I'm invested, I'm invested. There is no partly or maybe or if or when. So when I got my first boyfriend at age sixteen (yeah, that late), and he was a guy that I'd already been really good friends with for almost two years, I thought that was that. We knew each other, we loved each other, and I'd found The One. Of course I hadn't...but I thought I had. So when he broke up with me, at age seventeen, I thought it was the end of the world. Quite literally. I thought that was it – there would never be anyone else. Untreated clinical depression had more than just a little to do with this, but for now that's beside the point.
     Anyway, at eighteen years old, still not over my loss but having started college across the country, I took it upon myself to write my own version of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43 (How Do I Love Thee?). In other words, I ripped it off. But I was trying for the whole "juxtaposition" thing. So I'm finally going to expose it here, for all the world to see. Or...for anyone at all to see, maybe, someday. Just because damn, I was dramatic. But I guess why wouldn't I be, thinking that my life was over?
​     I'll drop my own version, and then below it I'll leave the original, for comparison's sake. It was the only "sonnet" I ever wrote, and it was a pain in the ass. Did she really write more than 43 of those things?! Elizabeth, I admire your commitment to the craft.
​     Well, enjoy! Or...whatever.

How did I love thee? Let me count the ways. 
I loved thee when the peace and trust and right
Thy soul did breach, when reeling in my fright
I took thy words to be a sacred praise.
I loved thee through the battle and through the phase
Of silent pain, and weeping in the night.
I loved thee fast, as shadow to the light.
I loved thee constant, as night into day.
I loved thee with a hope I would not lose
In my lost time, or with my battered faith.
I loved thee with a pain that I would choose
And bear so long. I loved thy every breath –
Sleep, wake, my heart was thine; and I, abused,
​Can't help but love thee better after death.

Sonnet 43
​Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.