(no subject)

[journeys__end]

This poem needs some help. I love my first stanza, but it falls off afterwards. I specifically need help staying away from the cliche and creating images in the readers' minds. Any help would be appreciated.


change direction

if i wanted to, i could leave today-
visit ireland and meet a hundred people
with my name. i could view the pacific
ocean, that looks different than the atlantic,
i’m told-travel to australia and see the great
barrier reef, even though i don’t want
to be a marine biologist anymore.

i should have left yesterday, before i felt
the loss of god, before i lost the fairytale
vision of my father. i could have run away
from the death of my closest aunt
and the grandfather i never knew; i could
have outrun the losses.

maybe i will leave tomorrow-to a new place
where i can start all over again. a place
where virginity is sacred, religion is overrated,
and deaths are celebrated as extensions of life.
a place where no one knows my pain.

but without pain, am i the same person?
without the losses of my life, would i still cry?
loss and grief is what has shaped me
into the person i am today, the person
that stands before you: not smiling, not laughing,
but with tears in her eyes that let you know
that she has truly felt in her life.