I have been redeemed.

The past is irrevocable.

I stand in the bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror. I hold my own gaze until I am aware of every freckle in my eyes, every irregularity, every thing that makes my face different from someone else's. I stand in my bathroom peering at my own face and take in the vast account of what I have done. I am accountable to my own life.

I have committed sins against everyone who has ever been close to me. Some of those have been beyond my repair. Once I fully became aware of what I had done, so much time had past. Saying I was sorry would never be enough. Sometimes no words were spoken aloud; one moment of locked eyes said everything: I had been wrong. And someone else had to pay for it.

So I stood in the bathroom and accounted for all my deeds and offenses. My actions, which not only affected myself negatively, but those to whom they were committed. Some relationships may never be made whole again. Some may never be made part. And none may ever be the same as they were. What I have chosen has changed my history.

Despite my remorse over my past, I cannot change it. It shall always be what it is. I look into my own eyes and tell myself, “You have been redeemed.” Though I cannot alter the course of my actions up until today, I have been redeemed. I may not be capable of mending those whom I have broken, but I may be made unbroken, myself. I have not been repaired or refinished, but I have been made new. I may not change history, but I affect my future. Just as only I can look at myself and see my own face, only I can make my own choices.

I am responsible for every misdemeanor I perpetrate. Any good thing is not my own. I, myself am wholly spoiled, the bad apple in the barrel. But I have been redeemed. I have been made unbroken. I cannot repair what I have destroyed, but it too can be made as new. Those whom I have broken may too be made unbroken, though not by me. My actions affect more than just myself, more than just those whom I have transgressed against. The weight of my choices is held by all those around me, and by all of those around them. Atlas could not support the heaviness born of what I have chosen to do in my life.

But One can. And He does.

I have been redeemed.

untitled no. 78

“I would pity anyone like us,”

you said as you boarded the Greyhound bus

headed for New York.

This was your road, and here was a fork.

And I don't expect that I'll see you again.

untitled no. 77

Like the feeling that stirs

in him and in her

is the feeling that be

on the inside of me.

untitled no. 76

     if

          l(if)e and death

were in one breath

     where is the after with?

gift for uselessness.

You have this incredible gift to make me feel like the most useless person alive. Feelings are unnecessary. Especially this one. I don't know how you do it, but you hardly have to say a thing. And there it is: me, the most useless person alive. But all I really want is to be truly useful to someone. Never to you, of course. It is easy for you to discard people with such candor. I dwell long and hard about being discarded. It seems I will never be useful.

So many people are out there being useful to someone, and I am here being useless to everyone. Isn't there someone I can do something for in some small way? It would seem not.

It's okay, I was completely and totally useless to him, too. And look where that ended up. Eight months later and I still feel like the loneliest person in the world. My friends are all leaving me for husbands and wives and lovers and others and I am alone. Some say I should savor the delicious loneliness, that it will not last forever. Good. I do not want it to. I've been alone for 20 years. I think that's plenty long enough. Perhaps I should become friends with nuns and monks. They don't get married.

I do know that You will always be here, God. Just when everyone else leaves I feel rather pathetic. I suppose I expect too much out of the world. I don't know. Right now I just know that I feel lonely, pathetic, and like the most useless person alive. Give me a task, Lord. I'm going crazy.