My mother once told me
That Frost didn't mean
For his advice
Of taking
The road less taken
To be taken lightly. She said
That this road,
Gnarled and twisted and laden with hurdles
Would not be a ramble in a park;
It would be a gruelling struggle
To journey through
The thorny thickets and the knitted vines
Of the wilderness.
She said this because
She has taken this road
And she has seen what it holds.
I took my mother's advice
And still took Frost's road.
This road holds within itself
My secrets and my lessons and my people and my everything else.
As I attempted to trek this path
And climb this mountain, I saw
Everything my heart aches for
But can't have; everything just within an arms reach,
Waiting to be grasped for, waiting to be pulled away.
I saw everything that ever made my heart bleed,
Everything that told me not to be so naïve, so silly,
Everything that told me to smarten up and never forget.
I saw all those people,
All those men and women and others
Who loved me and whom I loved and who were taken away from me.
(I see you. I hope you're okay.)
Then,
At the very end of this demanding journey, I see my soul.
I see my own soul covered in dirt gasping for air and reaching for water.
I see it there, right beside the cliff,
I see past the sand and gravel and stray leaves,
I see past it all and then I see something else.
I see my soul.
I see the light it emits
I see it ignite and blaze and flash and then I am blinded.
My soul has flourished.
Everything else is ash.
I see now why my mother said
That this would be a gruelling struggle.
I see now that it was not
This wilderness that would make this taxing.
It was my wilderness
That made it taxing.
