I’m fine. How are you?
I am not guilty.
I have guilt, but it does not have me. (I’ve paid a lot of money to make this distinction).
I have guilt, AND it does not have me.
It’s a mutual understanding that we’ve made, you see.
Sometimes it forgets our little agreement.
I do not.
I have guilt.
Like a scar, or a memory,
or that gum on the bottom of your shoe you just can’t scrape off.
I have guilt.
Like a mole. Like that sunspot. That discoloration. That uncontrolled replication of cells.
I haven’t always
had it,
and it comes and goes with the seasons and
exposure.
I haven’t always had it...or have I?
(I don’t know, I can’t see back there.)
Anyway.
I have guilt.
Sometimes I carry it around like the fork I forgot to put in the sink after supper.
Like a planner I’m supposed to use.
I carry it neatly folded and tucked into the carpet bag of generations.
Clean and tidy. Oh the stories it could tell.
Sometimes It spills out of my orange sand pail and all over my kitchen floor.
Don’t worry. This is a random occurrence.
It’s rare, but I never know when it’s going to happen.
Every party is like a grab bag!
I carry my guilt in my grandmother’s recipe box, in the grooves of her paper-thin palms.
Squeezing my fingers so tightly her wedding ring broke my skin.
“They took my trees” was all she could manage to say in the days after the wind stole her memories
of her.
On good days I play with my guilt.
I stack up the building blocks, mix the paint, and smear the canvas.
Making and remaking, painting over
and over and
over and over and over it.
Until the ghost painting is deftly hidden,
And I set down my brush,
Only to find the Elmer’s glue has truly stuck this time, and no amount of peeling it from my palms will remove the rainbow from my bedroom wall.
Childlike, I sometimes swing in my guilt.
Back and forth and back and forth and back and forthandbackandforthandbackandforth
Until I can't go back and forth and then I puke.
I’m sorry. That’s my fault. I should have told you not to push so hard.
I just can't take it.
Not like the others.
That’s my fault you pushed so hard.
Anyway.
Oh, and then there are the so many times I’ve buried my guilt!
Walked deep into your graveyard of my sins.
Dug that shovel deep deep deep into the mud;
Rip the ground,
Break the soil, crush the rock,
And drop the Lego people head first,
Head first,
Head
Head first so they can’t speak the truth of what they know.
Ssshhhh...hush little baby…
Don’t rock the boat. Don’t make waves. Don’t be a fly in the ointment.
Don’t be a turd in the punch bowl.
Don’t make that face you little B.
Get out of my sight I’m tired of looking at you.
Anyway.
Oh, how I love my guilt.
It hangs me from my family tree so gentle.
Sometimes I kick my guilt down the street-
Chasing after it, always
glad to share in the game.
Glad to make the pass, and so I kick
But that little fucker just sticks to my shoe.
On my best days I laugh at my guilt.
How absurd it is,
sitting atop the tower; white robe and all,
A fist full of shit and beer.
Gloating.
He’s not going anywhere (remember our agreement?)
I’ve paid a lot of green to hear that he just needs a friendship bracelet and a cuddle,
but I’m all out of safety pins,
and there’s just not enough time on my lunch break to make that cool pattern before I have to grow up and fly the desk and pretend to be just fine.
Just fine, thank you.
Anyway,
how are you?
Sometimes it forgets our little agreement.
I do not.
