Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.

The Version Where I Arrived Sooner

Rewriting Memory

Some three decades later, it haunts me in some way
I can still see the scene and scenario clear as day
Missed chances can taunt us in that constant replay
But even then, I knew the exact words to say

Yet now, in the version where I arrived sooner
Our talk would have had a little more depth
Even though I was young with that sense of humor
There was a passion in me that had quite the breadth

Maybe it was because I was so young and naïve
At the time there were endless possibilities
Then again in those days I didn’t really perceive
That the sail through life wasn’t going to be a breeze

It was some years later when I stood at that place
The old wood bench felt like it was the fork in the road
But had I arrived sooner we would have embraced
Now it’s just a memory preserved in this ode

— Wallyroo92, Apr 05, 2026

About This Poem

Last Few Words: NaPoWriMo2026 Day 5

Review Request Direction: Is the internal logic consistent?

Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back

Editing Stage: Editing - polished draft

About the Author

Region, Country: California, US, USA

Favorite Poets: Maya Angelou, William Carlos Williams, Pablo Neruda, Robert Frost, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Charles Bukowski, Alfredo Espino, Roque Dalton and several more.

More from this author

Critiques

John Leslie O'Kelley

John Leslie O'Kelley

1 month 4 weeks ago

The Version Where I Arrived sooner

I can relate to this poem, because I know you can't turn the pages back. We all make choices that come with, sometimes immediate consequences, but sometimes we escape without a scrape. If this is about losing love, because of indecision, well that's just the way this poem made me feel and I appreciate that you penned this poem, it made me think of my own indiscretions. Decisions that I might or might not have made.

Wallyroo92

Wallyroo92

1 week 2 days ago

The Version Where I Arrived Sooner

Thank you John for reading and commenting. Yes, I think we all have that one missed chance or that tipping point in our lives where we knew our indecision or lack of action may have led us down that path. Who knows what would have happened, but regardless, the choices we make shape us. all we can do is look back and remember fondly (or with trauma for some).