If only I could: NaPoWriMo Day 8

NaPoWriMo prompt for day 8 asks us to peruse the work of one or more of these twitter bots, and use a line or two, or a phrase or even a word that stands out, as the seed for our own poem

The Sylvia Plath Bot, as you might expect, tweets snippets of Plath. @PercyBotShelley tweets Shelley, @ruefle_exe tweets bits of Mary Ruefle’s poems, and @carsonbot and @sikenpoems send into the world small fragments of the work of Anne Carson and Richard Siken.

I used the tweet of Mary Ruefle  and chose the following line:

So far away are now the distances.

I took the challenge further by using prompt of another poetry forum called ArtoonsInn that required us to start today’s poem by using “If only I could”

If only I could

If only I could be a little more carefree

I would not delve into the meaning of those silent words

If only I could tell the genuine from fake and lies

I wouldn’t have intoxicated my life with tears and expectations

If only I could see the man behind the mask

If only I could know what’s truly in people’s heart

If only I could believe what I believe is truly believable

If only I could know why chasing happiness seems unfeasible

If only I could soar to attain my interminable dreams

If only I could have answers to all idiosyncrasies

If only I could live my life on my terms

If only I could trust my wisdom to be my armor

If only our relationships were not so fragile and intricate

If only love was prime and love steered our fate

If only I could have time machine for a little time

I would seal the past in past and not let future entwine

So complex are our lives, a constant haste to achieve

So far away are now the distances, so distant is own heartbeat

                                                                        ©Vandana Bhasin

                                                                                    08.04.2020