Prompt: Write a poem about your own road not taken – about a choice of yours that has “made all the difference,” and what might have happened had you made a different choice.
[this prompt hits close to home for me, and is one that I want to explore more deeply in the future. it’s a bit too intimate for me to embrace right now, though]
the path before me
stretches beyond sight
straight in a single direction
thousands of tangents
tear away from the trail
ducking behind trees and hedges
the road is lava
behind and beneath me
I see no more than a few feet ahead
at each juncture
I am faced with a choice
to turn or continue forward
I often wonder
if I made a wrong turn
or if failing to turn
was its own failure
if the status quo
has handicapped the present
through the rewards lost
from risks unredeemed
but the path is lava
no chance to go back
no chance to explore the “what if”
the path is lava
only molten rock
now and tomorrow
are all that exist
Emma – I like the image of our paths once chosen being flowing lava.
I definitely relate with the uncertainty in this. I like that you talk about the path being straight, but there exist such a multitude of ways to create and encounter a new path. I think some choices often feel like this: that there is one logical choice, but we are often left wondering if the illogical may have suited us better.