If-Only’s, What If’s, & Now

“Doors” by robynejay is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

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If-Only’s, What-if’s, and Now

By Jane Tawel

May 24, 2023

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The “If-only’s” stuck inside

create a life-time of regret.

We become unaware

that we have created our own unhealthiness —

Re-gretting. Re-griefing.

Re-gurgitating.

And we bring it all back up,

again, and again,

like bile, like vomit,

like hiccups that never end.

We drink the dregs left from the past,

and our insides ache,

but we keep sucking it all down,

and spewing it all out again.

Like carbonated bubbles,

we keep burping back up past wrongs.

Heart-burn as choice.

We come close to letting go,

but step away,

as if the perfume of freedom,

freedom from the past,

is too heady a scent,

too strong to wear now.