Creative Writing Prompt – May 22, 2014: Tough Decision

Setup: Pick one moment in your life where you had to make a tough decision—picking a college, quitting a job, going on a diet, putting a parent in a retirement home, etc. Now write about a fictional character who was faced with the same situation and choose to make the opposite decision. How did things turn out differently?

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Maddening is my quench for sorrow,
As I perch here till the morrow,
Watching and reading works of horror,
By a mad man named Edgar Poe,
A beautiful madman named Edgar Poe.

For his stories are intriguing.
It stirs my soul to thoughts unheeding,
Memories of long lost meaning,
Forgiven by me from long ago,
From a mother lost long ago.

My mind torments as ghastly figures,
Manifest within my embers,
Reaching out to comfort her,
Loneliness bore long before,
Loneliness that death adored.

As my heart sank, my mind drifted, wandered,
“What if I did not embark on,
“That unforgiving task that drove me,
“Into madness long ago?
“What if I had just said, no?”

So my alter ego engaged me,
Shown me how disgusting maybe,
My mind would cause me to reach unthinkable,
Acts my eyes adored.
Acts to which my eye explored,
Something that I could not know before.
Cultivated, but never grown.

Regret would have overtaken,
How wrenched a woman I would forsake me
A different person emerged untaken
By the face of death, I would ignore.
But the face of death unknown would cause me
To wheel hurt I’ve never felt before.
Only this and nothing more.

So graciously I thank my Maker,
For putting me through such dreadful terror,
So I may grow rich in strength through grace,
That others wish they had in store,
A grace to fear no death no more.
Such a blessing I can’t ignore.

Still late some nights I see my mother,
Sitting quietly within her quarters,
Her dog below, her cat unheard of,
In her home around the corner.
Alone and silent, she never uttered,
A weeping heart I always wore.
So I will weep forever more.