Exasperated

I didn’t write this sestina yesterday.
It’s the first time I fell behind in my task
and hopefully, the only time it will.
This means that today I must write two
sestinas. If I don’t write them today, I
will have to write two later down the line.

Although I feel I’m slogging through each line
I think I’m doing better every day,
though maybe this is wishful thinking: I
showed my friend my just-completed task
two days ago (my God, was it two
entire days? I’ve no idea what I’ll

do after thirty-nine days. I think I’ll
feel like Inigo Montoya, who’d been in the line
of revenging for so long, he didn’t know what to
do with the rest of his life), and he deigned
to be polite, but I could tell the task
was hard for him. He told me finally that I

had made a noble effort, but that ultimately I
failed. So my question: when will
I be a decent sestina writer? For this is my task.
Maybe if I just keep cranking out line after line
I’ll finally figure it out. Maybe one more day
or another week will do it, or maybe I’ll need two,

or maybe it’ll never happen. Maybe a sestina’s too
involved, too much weaving of words too fine, and I
will never write a good one, even on my best day,
even if I employ all my skill and all my will.
I’m not used to writing poems with thirty-nine lines,
that must be the problem, must be why this task

is Herculean. He only had to finish twelve tasks,
and I have one less one thousand, five hundred twenty-two,
and it’s nothing but complaining lines
about how hard it is to be a person. I
am getting sick of myself with these poems, and will
soon be loathe to get out of bed every day.

But I tasked myself with this, which may be the worst I
ever do to myself. I thought a poem NaNoWriMo would
be fun, would line my resume, give me something I could publish someday.