Sonnet Sequence: Annulment

This late, unfeigned betrayal could corrode
so deep a wound because I know this sport:
I knew the way your promise would contort,
and I allowed your love to take this road,
because I judged it fair for what I owed.
Thus, I will silence now my lips’ report.
I will not speak against you in the court
of judgment, though my wounds have overflowed.

That I have hated you, and cursed your sin,
and spoken crisp and loud your every wrong
to multitudes—this is to my chagrin.
For I am not a child; no, I am strong,
am strong enough to keep my anguish in,
to seal my lips as long as life is long.

And from this day, I never, uncontrolled,
will show your sins or broadcast all your faults,
although your lies, your sickening assaults
are in me and are shocking in their bold
and cruel heartlessness. But Fate is cold,
to you—a childish nothing in the vaults—
to me—the votary who still exalts.
You are too low to fault, too young to scold.

Today you killed me, watching me dissolve.
Tomorrow I am living, undeterred.
I’ll let it feed upon me and evolve,
and you will never hear me breathe a word
of pain or pained reproach. This I resolve.
I will it so—but laugh; I am absurd.