a message to the love filled imp

who showed up and brought the sausage

Who are you going to be?

That was the question.

The question I asked my buddy Charlie as we sat next on a bench by the osprey nest in Shubi park.

Who are going to be, the piece of shit that you were in your youth - that guy who fucked up all the time and hurt others, or the man whose here now?

Wrapped up in an old story of guilt and shame, he didn’t have any room for who he was.

I just feel so bad all the time… Like I don’t deserve any of this?

It’s so fucking tiresome listening to good men beat themselves up over shit they did five, ten, fifteen and even forty years ago.

How many people did you rape? How many babies did you kill?

His answer was simple: None.

Did you run over any old ladies? How about disabled people on those mobility scooters, kill any of them? That only gets you a year of house arrest if you’re drunk, even less if you’re sober.

He didn’t do anything like that.

And yet…

And yet, he was being more vicious on himself than any standards set around ‘guilt’ and ‘debt to society’ set…