Once More

Guilt. The tormenting being that lurks inside all of us, poking at us, and reminding us of our failures. Day in and day out. It pulls us from our slumber, out of our lollipop daydreams back into the nightmare of reality.

“But it’s not all bad!” She says trying to coax me out of my debacle of nagging thoughts. I turn and look at her, torn away momentarily from my thoughts. I smile, knowing full well that she’s right, and I won’t take that away from her despite my continual brooding in the corner.

“I know it’s not, but this guilt is baiting me. It’s luring me in. You know how it is...” I reply staring out the window again.

“If we’re being honest, it feels like I’m in a fist fight with a demon. The push and pull agonizing as I try to fight back with all the good in my heart that I can muster,” I continue as the thoughts come racing back full force.

“I don’t know why you think you can escape this,” the demon of guilt echoes as it grasps my hands as I fight back. “You’re guilty for a multitude of reasons...who are you to leave when they need you most? Do you feel no shame? Are you not caring and loving of your friends? What about your mother? You know she’ll only live for so long...monster.”

The guilt tastes like sour candy in my mouth. It burns my taste buds and my eyes squint in some tragic attempt to get past the bitterness. The thoughts tearing me apart and ruining all the good I know for a fact surrounds me. I refuse to accept that I am a monster. I refuse to accept that I need to keep up this façade. I refuse to allow the guilt I feel take me back to a place that I have grown from like a flower through the dirt.

Do I feel guilty, I think to myself.

“Of course I do,” comes the response within my inner monologue. I suppose it’s a normal feeling and if I didn’t feel it, I would wonder what was wrong with me. But here’s the thing, I have worked too hard to get where I am today. To get on this plane to fly home and face the music is not something that I want to put myself through.

...I just don’t want to do it. I don’t want to go back. If I don’t have to face it, it can’t hurt me, right? I mean, that’s the theory. If I run before it runs on me, I don’t get hurt. I am at a point of loss as if walking into battle with no armor, shed and destroyed from the last battlefield I had to cross. I know what I’m walking into, and I want no part of it.