TRIGGER WARNING: Self harm / suicidal thoughts
Poetry Study
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.
Isn’t teenagehood supposed to be about possibilities? I see only one road. Grades. College. Marriage. Babies, drudging on forever. One road. And it’s not the one less traveled by.
Of course, Robert Frost was a man. Maybe my brothers don’t feel this way. Grades. College. Husband. Babies.
Two roads. Where’s the second? Is it a guy on a motorbike coming to take me away? Maybe it’s a knife or pills. No. Maybe it’s grades, college, not marriage. Maybe there’s a big turn here arrow just around the corner.
Maybe I missed it already.
Extroduction
Last week’s little girl was just starting to get treated like an adult. This week she’s half a dozen years older and starting to realise it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
The Road Not Taken is one of my favourite poems and I recite it often, especially when wandering through woods. I hope this character finds a way to love it, or at least not view s reading it as another part of her drudgery. I also hope she doesn’t need a white knight on a motorbike to save her.
Just in case she does:
elmowrites 
White knights have a habit of underperforming. Just take the bike
Haha, if she does that, the cops will be after her! But I guess that would be another option… life on the run has a ring of romance I doubt rings any more true than the version offered by the white knight.
A brilliant poem to take inspiration from. If only it was easy to know which road was the right one!
I like to think that was a point RF was making with his “the passing there had worn them really about the same” line. And the truth is, you never know where the path might have led, or whether it would have been better.
C’est la vie, a network of options that fan out behind and before us.
My eldest and I were talking about alternate universes last week. Makes you wonder if that network is played out somehow in ways we’ll never see.
Interesting thoughts and lovely flow of words.
Dear Jen,
Perhaps she has more options than she realizes. Hopefully she’ll find the right path. Nice piece of writing.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Grades, college, not marriage… and what? Career? A life of service to others? A convent? Travelling the world. Why the possibilities are endless but sometimes the ability to see them is disabled by expectations. Good piece, Jen.
Chocices, choices. I hope she is happy with her choice.
I love that poem and it has informed more than one turn in my life. This is my favorite story this week.
Tracey
Often one road leads to another and our choices are made for us.
Such a thoughtful story made fun with the ballad from Sara Evans. Thank you.
i love the quote from steve jobs when he said that you can’t connect the dots moving forward and can only do it moving backward. in other words, it doesn’t really matter where you’re heading; rather, it’s how you deal with it that counts.
Amazing write, Jen. (as per)
By the second sentence I had in mind a song by Carly Simon (I loved the Sara Evans one also). I also enjoy RF poems.
But this song hints that the traditional ways may not always be the best.
Great poem and a great story 🙂
Beautiful, eerie atmosphere. Thank you Jen. Such inspiration flows from Robert Frost’s poetry: a great road he chose for our pleasure. Happy creating.
Loved the Sara Evans song. Sad, though, when anyone think s the only way out of a life of drudgery is to enter into more drudgery.
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