The Devil Came Between Us
“Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm” said Mercutio,
As he lay there on the street, dying.
It must be true, then, that history only remembers the winners and survivors,
Because while the love story of the two star crossed lovers, bravest Romeo and purest Juliet lives on to this day,
No one thinks of the children killed,
The names of Tybalt and Mercutio forgotten.
While the feud of Montagues and Capulets was raging,
The future generations were dying.
In a fit of rage, Tybalt killed Mercutio, and Romeo killed Tybalt, who had wanted to kill Romeo.
A never ending cycle of detestment and hatred and murder,
And who ends up on top?
Tybalt, the short tempered Capulet?
Romeo, the hasty Montague?
Mercutio, a witty member of neither party?
No.
No one ends up on top, no one wins.
If Shakespeare is going to be honored for writing a tale of two lovers fated to meet and die,
Then he should also be honored for showing his readers the truth.
The reality of the same cycle we have been forced into.
Everyone has fought, betrayed and lied.
Driven by theses temporary emotions,
We fly into a rage, and though it is improbable we have left physical bodies behind,
The mental husks of it will haunt us forever.
Ghosts of our pasts, invisible to the human eye, that impact our decisions,
Biases,
And actions.
No one realizes anything,
Shakespeare, like other poets and authors of the world,
Has shown us the rare truth.
And in an earth where life is the stage, and we are the actors, lying and faking emotions that aren’t there,
The truth isn’t something we are used to seeing.
Maybe the devil had come between us as well.
Maybe with us always wrapped up in our own lives,
We let this rage simmer and boil until it couldn’t possibly be faked anymore.
Friends fell trying to stop it,
And we fell feeding into our pettiness.
And just like with the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet,
No one ended up on top.
Audrey Chen is a fourteen year old poet and author, her literary works often reflecting on the themes and brutalities of real life. She is addicted to reading Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and loves putting symbolism and metaphors into her writing.