riding the poetry bus

When it comes to poetry I'm a peculiar bird. When I try my hand at it I usually do okay, but for whatever reason poetry usually is off my radar. A few of my blogging friends, however, enjoy poetry a great deal, so I am reading and enjoying more and more of it. My friend The Bug participates regularly in some writing challenges via other blogs, and this week one of them piqued my interest enough to give it a go. I have lifted the following (in italics) from her blog:

The Poetry Bus is being driven by the amazing Karen at Keeping Secrets (really, you should check out her poetry). She has us thinking of Robert Frost and forks in the road. She says:

The challenge for passengers this week will be to write about one of the following:

(1) a time you had to choose between two clearly divergent paths; (2) a time you were called to walk a path you didn't choose for yourself; or (3) a time you refused to travel the path you were called to follow. If these won't work for you, write anything about a choice you made.

I'm going with number 1. It is title-less. 

How is it

that love lives

where like can find no home?

The lure of love

brushed past the ragged edges of 

discomfort, 

disunity, 

dis- too many things,

and blazed a trail that,

just in time, 

would host the thundering hooves
of heartbreak.

Worse, dreambreak.

Shards of broken images
stared back at me

from that place of 

dreaming, 

longing, 

imagining a world
through which I was meant 

to dance

and sing

and play

and splash

in puddles of joy.

But, no.

Wisdom called out, 

my own clarion call to hold me back 

and protect the heart 

whose breath lifts the wings of dreams.

In the shadow of wakefulness 

my world went still, 

and gray. 

And it waits. 

Again.