How do you spell relief?
The Curious Boy spells it, C O N V I C T E D.
The Cautionary Man doesn’t know how to spell it.
As a teen, violated by a mentor, abused and traumatized—
consumed, incongruously by guilt, shame, dishonor,
an embarrassment to everyone who ever loved him.
Ruminating guilt is a prison without walls or bars or barriers—
a rambling hobo of the hippocampus trying to pander
a sinister black hole of fear to the cortex
that created it in the first place.
Eternal debtor to the simultaneity of cause and effect—
a gangster in the protection business
promises to keep all that is precious from harm
but won’t disclose what that harm might be.
Imagination left to itself can imagine a lot—
a gaping amorphous pit that consumes everything
and never spit you out.
He is not Jonah and doesn’t know how to bargain with God
but by god he bargains, he pleads, he begs.
Being guilty, actually guilty, has nothing to do with it.
The Curious Boy knows innocence as well as he knows
the back of his own hands.
Innocence is a vapor, a smoke that, if inhaled
brings no calm, no buzz, no bravado.
Innocence has a disconnect with reason—
a toxic codependency with hope.
Heinous acts brain-spread like sprouting germs in a rotten wound
a metastatic tumor to the nucleus accumbens.
Cowering in fear of paralytic panic, the past flash fragments
a silent horror film playing at random, semi-conscious, and totally terrifying.
When everything was legally resolved in his favor
The Curious Boy hoped he would be free
but long after a new life in the hands of a greater power
a traitorous haze of blame hovers in the pericardium
waiting for a chance to seize the leaflets of his heart.
