The Road Not Taken

That innocent gleam in her button-eyes... The demure, loving words she whispered softly in my ears... Her habit of fidgeting with her fingers at awkward moments... The mischievous smile with which she beamed at me whenever our eyes met... Her tears that made even the sadness look painfully beautiful... That absent-minded goodbye-wave she did with an illogical fear evident on her face... The way she coiled around my arms like I was her superhero... The tenderness of her touch... The softness of her skin... The blush on her cheeks that rendered her speechless at our rare rendezvous. The taste of the food she secretly cooked for me and fed me with her hands... The way she wiped my sweat off my forehead when we walked together in the sun...

She must have been some beautiful early morning dream. Reality can never be that perfect.

I stood at the fork my path had split at.

She stood with her hand extended at me on one of the roads. She smiled with her eyes full of expectations and longing. My only dream… That beautiful early morning dream… Only a few feet away… The road she had taken was rough, narrow and full of sharp stones and shriveled grass. When our eyes met, I averted mine from her. Something twisted inside my heart… The perpetual battle of my thoughts grew more gruesome than ever.

I took the other road.

She scorns me for taking a simpler road. Little does she know that having choices isn't always an advantage. Little does she know that any road without her hand in mine could never be simple for me. Little does she know why Robert Frost’s poem is titled ‘The Road Not Taken’ instead of ‘The Road Less Traveled’… Little does she know about regrets…

"I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

- Robert Frost