Whispered Wanderings

After Robert Frost’s “Birches”

You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen
the way my heart shattered under the weight
of our separation. A convoluted relationship, so
unbalanced, so impossibly boundaried. And yet I still
couldn’t leave. Instead, I wore out my welcome as they say;
then, the only way for me to escape was to destroy
the parts of it that used to be so beautiful. So,
once again fool that I am, I have broken my own heart.
And for what, I want to ask but there is no one to ask.
For this freedom, that now it’s mine, suffocates me?
If I could take back my words I would. But there’s no
such thing as a time machine, and I can’t go back.
I chose my future when I dialed the phone that day and now,
regret gnarls inside me while I wait for time to dull the pain.

klm
4/24/24

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt: to write a poem that begins with a line from another poem (not necessarily the first one), but then goes elsewhere with it. The line I chose from
somewhere in the middle of the Frost poem Birches, “You’d think the inner dome of
heaven had fallen”. Yes, this one’s super-duper personal and hard to put out here.
But I feel called to.