Empathy: The Karmic Groundwalker

When I was a child, my mother had long hair. It was even curlier then.
A pretty ordinary fact to accompany an ordinary childhood memory of the time an extraordinary ringlet could not escape my attention

Childish haste in tact, I tangled the cluster of curls around my fingers and retracted them with force to create a pin straight rendition of the shapes I adored.
I watched in awe as it sprung back into form, too mesmerised to repeat the action before my mother could react to the pain. She told me she was hurt. She made me apologise.

I said sorry, but I wasn't. After all, I was just a kid. And I didn't have much hair.

Roughly a decade later I woke up on an ordinary morning,
Accompanied by the usual knotted tell of a poorly slept on head of curls
The same childish haste saw me dash for the lounge on the first note of a good cartoon theme song
The little focus I had was split between the brush, the tv, and a morning chat with my mother when the brush caught
Ripping my curls into a straight formation, fighting my scalp for the grip of each strand

She didn't even say a word
But we both knew I was sorry now

Throughout the years that have followed, I've learned that life favours this teaching.
You can avoid the wrath of empathy by meaning - and by understanding the meaning - of each sorry that you say.

My faith in this lesson is the only way I've survived life after you, my love. I didn't want an apology.

After all, you never meant a word you said. And you didn't have much heart.

But sooner or later, on an ordinary day, you will meet somebody.

She will let you love her. She will allow you to surrender to her
With no intention of ever loving you back
And when she's gone, you'll never catch the breath you lost to untangling what's left of the pieces she tore off and took with her.

I won't even know you anymore
But you'll be sorry