The Road I Wouldn’t Choose

I didn’t ask for this journey of scars,

or the weight of lessons burned into bone.

I never dreamt of walking through fire

just to learn how to stand alone.

There were softer paths, I’m sure,

fields I could have crossed without bleeding feet,

roads that bent toward gentler sunsets,

where the heart wasn’t always destroyed on repeat.

But this… this suffering, pain, and shame

it carved me into something real.

I’ve been broken, forged, reshaped by flame,

and somehow, I still feel.

If I could rewrite the script, I wouldn’t.

Every fracture taught me to bend.

Every storm I cursed became the compass

that pointed me home in the end.

So no, I wouldn’t have chosen this life,

the pain, the loss, the endless climb.

But I wouldn’t trade a breath of it either,

for it made this soul of mine.

© 2026 A Broken Poet

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