Wake Up

I used to sit in my cell and dream of pleasure. The foods I would eat. The movies I would watch. The shampoo I would buy. It's been nearly three years now since I walked out and I realize pleasure is no longer what I yearn for.

I just want peace. I want to be okay with myself. I want take an eraser and blot out my past. To hit the delete button and rewrite my story. I want to start at the moment I pick up the knife and make a different choice.

There's no going back when you take someone's life. It's never not there. I always live with it. His ghost sits on my shoulder and reminds me constantly of what I am. They say "We are not our choices." But what else are we.

I can't be anything else. I sit on a pile of excuses and justifications so that I can find air to breathe. Everyone says he deserved it. They tell me they would have done the same thing. But no one should be allowed to choose if someone dies.

I can't be at peace. Not when he sits here and reminds me with bits of memory that I am the reason he can no longer create memories of his own. I want to find peace and believe I made the only choice I could make. That peace would bring me pleasure. But I know the peace will never come.