Guilt is a misspelled tattoo

Guilt is a misspelled tattoo, 

Intricate and spiraling, 

Bold and ugly, 

Sinuous lines winding,

An elaborate path down my arm,

Strokes of ink marring the surface, 

Disfiguring me externally,

Flawing me internally,

A blot on my soul.

Sinister tendrils uncurl,

Into ominous shapes in every direction,

Shadows painted on skin,

That should have been left unmarked,

Hard to ignore, 

Harder to avoid everyone’s judgmental stares and,

Not even my regretful tears, 

Splashing on the ebony depictions,

Of a hell I created,

Change anything.

One decision - bad or not - left me scarred,

When faced with few options, 

I picked one I thought was best but,

Doomed both him and me.

Nightmares torment me in every form,

When awake, I see his face in every crowd,

When asleep, I see what I did,

Witnessing and wondering,

How I could have made,

Such a cold-hearted decision,

How I clutched the cold metal of the gun,

Placed it to the back of his head,

And pulled the trigger and,

Left him by the bank of the river, all alone.

After all that time shielding him,

Protecting him,

I left him.

Worst of all is the relief,

Relief that I won’t have to deal with him,

Won’t have to worry that he’ll get us fired from one more job.

Running my fingers over the patterns,

Summons a flood of overwhelming emotions.

The torture I condemned myself to,

Is illustrated on my skin.

Pangs of agony afflict me,

When I think of how indifferently, 

I shot my best friend, 

Sometimes they are paper cuts,

Other times, it’s like being stabbed with a knife.

It’s impossible to,

Detach myself from these sentiments,

To focus on the present and,

Not on the unchangeable past.

It’s impossible to move on,

Or to reassure myself,

That there was no moral solution to the situation.

I can’t seem to focus on the present,

The guilt is so skin-tight, it adamantly clings to me,

And I know that this,

Guilt is a misspelled tattoo,

Binding me to the past, transforming me. 

Author's Note

This poem was written from George's perspective (from "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck).