Survivors Guilt

In my opinion, it’s a trite old saying

Was this a reference to being alive

Or the disappointment of surviving?

The meetings have no answers

Just questions like how are you?

Can you accept what happened?

Could you be with what you did?

I survived but the rest didn’t

At night there is a waiting

The sounds of the people I once knew

Fill the room

Some nights Joe is cussing me out

Others Chris is crying over his newly wounded legs

Yet every night starts and ends the same

A slow and steady beat

Like a heartbeat out of time and sync

There’s a waiting for that moment

When it all syncs up

The time where everything makes sense

Instead I am here feeling the lingering presence

Of the worst moments we had

Mrs. Sanders saying she wants a divorce

John who was the youngest dying

Screaming people who are crushed

By the weapons destroying their bodies

I can’t seem to shake the memories

They are just around the corner of the aisle

At my favorite grocery store

Relived during the midnight hour

The occasional hand on the shoulder saying

“There’s no shaking it. You just have to let it come and go.”

Dying with them would have be better

Than having their worst moments sneak in