By the Way

By the Way

I borrowed
your trust
which I did
not earn

knowing that
you probably
wanted
some back

I’m sorry
that I
destroyed it
on accident

In my parody of “This is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams I mimicked the structure that he used. My poem consisted of very short lines with four lines in each stanza. The style is similar in that it is very straightforward and simply put. In the original poem the speaker is apologizing to a significant other for eating his or her plums. The style is very similar to a note one would leave as an apology on a simple piece of paper. However, one of the most intriguing parts of the poem is that the speaker does not simply stop at the apology but continues by telling the owner of the plums that they were delicious, almost in a mocking way.

In my poem, instead of something trivial, such as plums I used something that holds great significance in a relationship: trust. However, I maintain the simple, straightforward approach of the poem. The speaker in my poem shows little emotional regret at having destroyed someone’s trust. Moreover, the title of the poem is meant to suggest that the speaker finds trust to be trivial and his destruction of it to be nothing but a minor problem that can be solved simply using a note.