One chance to go back to fix the past

The time during this poem is: Mount Vesuvius eruption in Pompeii

Walking down the broken stone roads, I tripped.

 Scraping my fragile knee against others' misfortunes. 

Desperately, I saw the blinding lights of the future.

 Blinding millions, turning oblivious.

 Rapidly I get up, limping towards the road of hope. 

Desperately, I look for a clearing. 

I push through the woman holding their crying babies.

 I heard a loud crash, then I looked back.

 I see the ashy skies, then I looked down and saw her. 

The one I came for. 

The naive 9-year-old girl. 

Indecisive I am whether to turn back or keep going.

 A thought later, I was squeezing her shoulder, pushing through the crowd.

 The ashy sky made her cry.

 I dried her tears with my cloth.

 Reassuring her that she would see her mother again, little did she know that was a white lie. 

Thinking and thinking we climbed aboard a boat.  

The musky water brushing against our arms. 

I stop, look back wondering of the past. 

Remembering why I'm here, I look foward once again.

Author's Note

Ignore the lack of rhyming, I will fix that again. Just really looking for visuality and emotions.

Reviews

[barleygirl]

This reads like a passionately-told story, conversational, like it could be told orally. You use a very specific moment in time, one almost everyone must be aware of, the eruption of Mt. V, prefacing your poem with this note. But as I read, I could see this being ANY of many exoduses that happen decade after decade, around the world, depending on what decade a person is most aware of. For example, there are many famous photos of people fleeing naked & barefoot on a dirt road burning from napalm in the Vietnam War -- every war has it's famous images. Your poem describes any exodus that involves fire -- here in California in August/September, we had the worst wildfires ever, 4 million acres burned, so there were people fleeing with smoke in the sky in some places. To me, this is a major strength of your writing & storytelling, that you convey a universal message using a specific storyline (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[Kay/Hayden]

Thank you so much for taking time to do this for me (It means a TON) like I said in the email, this was a very difficult poem for me to write. I love your own writing and the fact you write hugs after every review lol. (You know what I'm about to say)
Have a great thanksgiving! -Kay

[Patricia]

This has great imagery and yes you have emotions in this piece. Sometimes when you write something you go with whatever flows from your pen. You can go with free flow or go for rhyme and rhythm, I love free flow but do rhyme but if the search for proper rhyme does not come easily I go free flow. That’s just me, I’m lazy ;) good work

[Kay/Hayden]

Thanks! I suck at rhyming all my pieces of writing are free flow, i dont do drafts because I believe the first things that come from your mind are the smartest. And if you second guess yourself, You are bound to make mistakes.

[Patricia]

I tend to write a piece then let it sit a few days and reread it and make changes if needed. That’s with poems I take seriously ones with substance. The ones I have posted here is just me writing to write again. Everyone has their own process but I do agree with your last statement. Just keep doing what you are doing cuz you’re doing good work

[Kay/Hayden]

Thanks so much! c: