Gabrielle Martone

Smith College

I met a girl

While peering through a looking class

Where two selves bore their souls

As if it were Judgment Day

Where her body stood, two roads forked

Diverged in separate parts

While both parts clamored for her, reciting deep desires

Her face held strong

As if she heard nothing more than the wind whispering through the trees

Even a taut warrior poised to strike

Could find no fault in either choice of path

Yet she knew at the depths of her core

That there was only one way for her to go

One road would enslave her

The other set her free

But neither would be her own

Looking into her eyes,

Those dark sapphires that held so much more than mine

Admiration swelled within me

A longing to feel as if I could take on the world

Like her, who knew that her own date

Led down only the unbeaten path.

And when we met eye to eye

I saw many futures bellow about her

As she stood strong

All the choices she made,

They were fueled by her passion-ridden heart

I prayed that I might have a single ounce

Of what made her headstrong

So that I might live another day

So that I might leave another breath

I pulled away,

I turned to go

I was there that I could barely see a flash of who she would be

A flash across the eye, a semblance of a stormy sky

It held her heart in tact

And her head in place

As though she truly knew her own way

I was long gone before I could figure out the final chord

I whisked myself down an already beaten path

Whether it would enslave me, or set me free

I would not know

But now, at the end of time

Now that the Crone has called me home

I only wish that I had known that she was me all along.