The Past

It isn't real, and yet I still can't escape it.

The weight of my decisions, the payment I have payed a thousand times - in guilt, in regret, and in pain. I've thought about that night so many times, thought about how I could have been a different person then. I could have said nothing, I could have walked away. After all, why didn't I? Was I that bitter? Why would I want to throw half of my life away for the sake of some satifying act of rebellion?

Nevertheless, the gashes I carved into my own soul still bleed, and I can see from the wound's depth that it will never fully heal. Perhaps I can change, perhaps I already have. Regardless, I can't convince anyone except for myself of that. I am destined to strive to be better, but in the people closest to me - even the ones who will be closest to me - I have already failed.

It is a cruel irony; the only person I know who could forgive what I've done in someone else, to be with them in spite of it, is me. I deserve myself, and no one else.

So, in poetry I find love, in meditation I grow closer to God and myself, and in my solitude I think dark and brave things. Such is my privilege, and without its practice I will be lost.

Unfortunately, this is no piece of poetic fiction, but the truth about my life. I like to think of it as a poetic reality - I certainly got what I deserved. I just wish the past wasn't so permanent when we commit evil, and yet so temporary (gone in a flash, it seems) when we do some kindness from our hearts.

Perhaps, one day, I will make peace with my destiny. I know I won't be able to make full use of my solitude until I have. But for the present, giving up my dreams of deep companionship is too hard for me. I suppose that is what is wrong, and not my past - since my past is exactly right, since it cannot be argued with.