For so long I was the man inside punching me
The boxer
The toturer
Beating the self inside looking back at my life with one set of eyes
While I tried to stumble forward with another.
For so long I was the man inside beating me
Beating my heart
Beating my mind
Beating me for all the stupid shameful things I had done until….
One day
As I had done with a father that once beat me into a wall
I turned on that inside self
In mid blow
I stopped the flailing fists
And said with a love of my self
A defiance of the self loathing self hate I had been taught
And believed was right,
“ENOUGH!
NO MORE!” I cried into my darkness where the blows had been coming from
And they slowed
Becoming weaker
And a voice from the slowly failing blows blew my way…
“You’re not so bad
You never were
It’s just that damned over blown conscience of yours making me do this to you” it whispered
Then became a muttering
Comforting ghost to me every day.
Sometimes I think of those that had real reasons for guilt
Real guilt
A guilt of truly hurting others…
People I knew far far worse than I…
Oh where did they go with all the bad they’d done
The woman that had cheated on me
The men that stole from me
The tricksters
The malicious pranksters
And bullies…
Oh so many those bullies…
Oh I wonder if there was ever a boxer
A torturer inside
Beating them every day
Every moment
As mine
As I’d done to myself so long.
If not
I wonder if they had
Or ever had
A CONSCIENCE
Regrets
Shame
A desire to right wrongs
Make amends.
Over the years I have seen no sign of that in those truly monstrous people
And that is the most horrible thing about them:
There was no boxer
No torturer inside them
To awaken them
Forge them
Make them better people
No conscience…
No conscience…
And they are still out there…
SHAMELESS.
