Whispered Wanderings

after Robert Frost’s poem Hyla Brook

We love the things we love for what they are.
Of people, though, I cannot say the same;
for there are some I love for what they’re not.
“He’s not an alcoholic or a cheat,”
I hear myself defending once again,
when asked why he won’t treat me like his queen.
I guess we grow up living what we’re taught:
what’s shown is more important than what’s real.
Appear to be a good girl at all cost!
Drummed into me from such an early age,
the hidden message lingers even still:
that who I am inside is bad, because,
this “good girl” on the outside isn’t me.
I don’t know who she is and never did!
And like a snake that sheds her outgrown skin,
The me who’s real is stepping out at last.

klm
5/4/24

[Using this prompt again: “to write a poem that begins with a line from another poem (not necessarily the first one), but then goes elsewhere with it.”]