Poem: The Exoneration of Regret
- I stare into the wreckage of my then,
- The echoes answer softly, “Here we met.”
- I catalog the harm I did back when,
- Each memory stamped with one dark word: “Regret.”
- I thought that flogging thought would make me clean,
- As if self‑hate could pay another’s debt.
- I wore my shame like armor, hard and mean,
- Yet every plate was forged from unpaid fret.
- I knelt before the altar of “Too late,”
- And prayed to be condemned and not forget.
- I called it holy never to feel great,
- As if joy proved I’d learned nothing from the upset.
- But sorrow, when it listens, learns to bend,
- It does not need a noose around its neck.
- The point is not to never find an end,
- But let remorse turn forward, not back‑check.
- I hear a Voice that does not flinch at crime,
- It names the wound and will not soft‑correct.
- Yet after truth has finished taking time,
- It opens up a road I can’t expect.
- “You cannot change the script of what you did,”
- It says, “but you can change what follows yet.”
- “You are not only what your worst self hid,
- You are the one who now can make a new beget.”
- So I release the courtroom in my head,
- Where I was judge, accused, and harsh cadet.
- I trade the endless trial for bread instead,
- And feed the part of me I used to vet.
- I visit those I’ve harmed with open eyes,
- Not asking them to cancel every debt.
- I give them space to answer or revise,
- While owning what I broke without reset.
- In learning how to grieve without self‑hate,
- I learn that punishment is not the same as sweat.
- The work is walking different through the gate,
- Not kneeling in the ashes just to fret.
- So let the gavel fall on shame’s old throne,
- Let mercy write the terms of my new bet.
- I carry what I’ve done, but not alone,
- For Love has signed The Exoneration of Regret.
…
DCG
