reckoning

I am more than that night

more than an empty shell

haunted by the early mornings of late October

I am the fire ravishing the car outside my window that night,

the bitter wind cutting through your jacket pockets to numb your fingers

I am a reckoning you cannot hide from

because it is not external

I am the unhappiness you can never quite pinpoint,

the guilt eating you from the inside out

that you will never understand

every fiber of my being is payback, brutal and expensive,

for a hefty life-time debt that you will never be free of