Regret

Regret doesn’t touch me

With the delicate brush

Of a night-moth’s wings;

Regret doesn’t shove me

Down, down with a rush

Of hammering nails

As the sky cracks, cries and brings

Back all those Tiny Little Things.

I don’t regret, really, all those things I’ve said,

It’s all that I didn’t that screams through my head;

If you weren’t forgiving,

If I was set on living

(So painfully understanding and honest,

I scream

Just to hear myself know, ‘He

doesn’t know what I mean!’ –

But this is the stuff that is stuffed down in dreams),

Well, who knows, ‘And who cares? And why bother

Being

If you’re just there to answer,

“I do. I believe” ?’

(It was all about the smiles.)

Guilt rushes past me,

Nostalgia’s grasped me

(The claws dig in further as the memories relapse) –

Regret is a thing that should never last.

Regret, after all, is a thing of the past.

...and the looks (the eyes),

Concerned at best;

If I have a regret,

It’s that I never said

‘yes’.

-12/13 (?) December ‘06