Walking alone by Elma Mitchell

Our houses stand apart, and so

The time had come I had to go

Out from the fire, into the snow

-He would have come, but I said No.

I walk beyond the lights I know,

The busy poet's harmless glow,

The lovers curtained from the snow

-He would have come, but I said No.

No voices on the winds that blow,

No light house in the swiveling snow,

No flare, no flame, the way I go

-But heel and toe, and heel and toe.

A poem about the determined rejection of a man's love. Elma repeats the line 'He would have come, but I said No' to show how determined the woman is in rejecting him. We can say that the woman in the poem was once fallen deeply in love with the man, however she chooses to go 'out from the fire, into the snow' without a concrete reason. Based on the title itself, it is possible that the woman thinks it is better to walk alone even though there is 'no flare, no flame, the way [she] go'.

The imagery used in this poem is really strong. By giving us the winter season as Elma keeps repeating the word 'snow', we can sense that the feeling inside the woman is only coldness. She knows that the man will be there for her as she keeps saying 'He would have come' but yet she insisted in saying 'I said No.' It is maybe because of the coldness inside her is all over her that she finds herself impossible to be with him anymore. Ironically, from the first verse, she says 'the time had come, I had to go' which tells us that she doesn't exactly want to go. It's just that she HAS to go. Wow!

This poem amazed me. Seriously.

Sometimes, you wish you could stay but you just can't because you couldn't afford risking yourself to be hurt if you stayed.

Do I look emo enough? Ahahaha