The Inverse of Innocence

I slowly paced towards the grey horizon

Dragged by my thoughts alone

Why did content not mend my soul..

Where did the expiation go wrong?

Please, Lord help me know myself..

Did I...did I.. not evil fell?

Did I not do it right?

Am I never to get respite?

Today I killed a man--

Yet why does it haunt me still?

The jagged shards force me to scream

Could I not be healed?

He brought it on himself, I reason

A vile knave, he planted the poison...

It lead to his own effacing..

A justified blot-out, long in-waiting

Pain, anger, blacken my being as I dwell on the past

So injurious, unfair, so violently trespassed!

The helplessness, the grief, the torment and the shame

So easily did he snuff out the flame,

               So leisurely did he our lives maim..

 At long last he got his due

The kill was swift, though blood did imbue

The damp mud, and the grass green,

His eyes searched for mercy;

           his body to the earth careened--

I waited for the peace of retribution to seep in..

The villainy dead, I stared down the carcass lying

The deed's completion overwhelmed me; sent a chill

It went exactly as planned,

                              Yet what's the foreboding I feel?

It becalmed me that the scoundrel won't be relishing life

Yet it disturbed me that my act was one of grim finality..

Does it make me a murderer?

               Would a mirror reflect back

                       A soul in dire need of redemption?

How much can my rights traverse?

                       Can I kill for a wrong?

                              Or two? Or maybe many more?

Or is avenging limited to all but the final stroke...

                                  Is that enough to cure rancor?

Where should one begin, where should one cease?

Why does unease fill my being,

                            Why does dread flood my psyche?

I want to escape this assessing,

                         This judgement which I myself effect

I want to flee from the feeling which agonizes me;

                                         So affright, so wretched

What price for freedom did I pay; freedom from what?

No calm soothes me, no love mends my wearied heart..

How do I fight this feeling ; How do I make it right...

The feeling that paralyzes my self,

                                 Makes my existence wilt..

The state of reproof, of unsaid compunctions,

                             Of this hellish feeling of Guilt...