Guilt Ridden

It weighs in my stomach

like I swallowed an anchor.

Rusted into my lower colon,

it's simultaneously a hanging picture frame on my frontal lobe

(like the one in the hallway you broke)

telling me what not to do.

But I'll never forget the way you looked at me;

the way I screamed and you shrank makes my stomach anchor drop.

This weight can't be removed so easily.

I can't outrun it.

It stays stuck to my ankles.

Like you did when you grabbed my leg.

Over and over flesh met flesh

as we rolled on the ground in a cloud of fists.

I see it in my head at night when you're sleeping.

When you breathe softly and the scars and scabs

on your face, head, and hands

all glimmer in the faint light

and dance around as if they aren't the stars of the worst night of our lives-

as if they don't make me want to cry.

My own bruises weep back in reply

and they pull the heavy stomach anchor through to the middle of the Earth.

I am stuck.

How can we move past this when I can barely move anymore?

I'm so sorry.