The Weight of What We Carry

It settles in the hollow of your chest,

a stone that grows heavier with each breath—

this knowing that you've caused another pain,

that words once spoken cannot be unsaid.

The mirror shows a stranger's eyes today,

reflecting all the choices that you'd change,

while memory replays its cruel refrain:

the moment when you turned and walked away.

Guilt whispers through the corridors of sleep,

transforms your dreams to courtrooms where you stand

before a jury made of all the faces

you've disappointed with your trembling hands.

But even stones can crack beneath the rain,

and morning light finds ways through shuttered blinds.

The heart that breaks for what it's done wrong

still beats with possibility for right.

Perhaps forgiveness starts with honest tears,

with admitting that perfection was a lie—

that being human means to hurt and heal,

to carry both our failures and our tries.