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guilt

i know how guilt  feels and tastes in me
the dust and ashes of responsibility
and the bad, surviving the dead and dying
and the knowing emptiness within,
the guilt of all this non-being

and yet i accept crime and license,
they are nothing, and heaven above us
is their absence, guilts and responsibilities
for trivialities - they sleep in this night
inside, they do not dream.

but guilt, guilt is the fingers of children,
the armoured breath and outrageous
health, life that lives itself just to spite
the timeless death, guilt is the living
and a dress rehearsal for all the dying

guilt is time and every other lie,
it is childish and i am a child
3 prayers for a small world


the world is out
to bastardize my
most private

vaults;

so I empty them
daily and pray
straight into

their absence.

-

to fit inside
myself I rip
my collar

of bearings
like the flesh
of a sad

chameleon;

I allow that
I'm occasional
at best.



I throw my
closest regrets
into a half

grave of
retreat and
servitude.
peter schwartz
David McLean