Guilt

Guilt is such a burden.

It eats me up inside and spits me back out, slyly grinning like it's got a hold of me. And it does, even if momentarily. I can go from feeling the sweet and sticky summer air running up and down my spine as I body roll and flex around in my skin-suit, to localizing my expressions in my mind. My mind that fills up with thoughts swirling, feeling like they have no place to go but back into each other, metastasizing and forgetting their origin.

Guilt makes me nauseated at the taste of chocolate. My sweet, delicious friend, chocolate.

And why do I feel guilt? Why do I feel manipulated to feel guilty for the way I feel and how I process the world? Why do I feel wrong, when in actuality I am being wronged. I am being wronged by not being respected for how I experience and express life. I know I am being wronged in some shape or form because I feel suffocated, I feel that whenever you come close or when I come close to you, my protective layer activates itself — though I try and urge it to stay put. Suppression. It covers me like a shield, preventing me from connecting with you authentically. But though my mask protects me from your manipulative ways, it also shields me from the sunshine that usually enters from the sky and reverberates throughout my body. So, I cry and allow my body to feel heavy, syncing up with gravity to pull my frequency down. This is not natural. This is not natural to me.

I can feel my body suffering and tears gathering in my throat. My mind, still full, thoughts still multiplying in extremes, screams out to me for a release. I mean, how much longer can this torture last?

It's a question I really should be asking myself. Nkem, how much longer will you allow others' energies to manipulate your view of yourself and your view of the world? Do you understand your power? Do you understand your strength? Your strength is love, and love is not a doormat. Love is as love does, and love does not pretend that it cannot see, sense, be the truth. The truth is that you know exactly who you are, and you do not need the winds of other people's words to approve the richness that is you.

But it hurts. Each pang of guilt feels like a fresh wound. I can almost hear the involvement of blood and subcutaneous flesh. It's moist and sticky and makes me feel uncomfortable — like I've entered into a near-abandoned bus terminal and must dodge fresh carcasses and putrid filth. The undead apocalypse of my inner world — when guilt is involved, anyway.

But I mustn't apologize for the unsavory, unsightly imagery, because that is what got me here initially. Apologizing for the way I process the world and my ongoing interactions present to teach me about myself. As I come to these words (or, as these words come to me) I recognize the function of guilt in my evolution. As I've watched this creature increase in size and dimension throughout the months, I wonder if it's connected to my freedom. Could it be that the guilt monster inside me exists in ratio to my pure potential for infinite love and liberation? These keystrokes seem to manage themselves, alerting me to the core truth of that statement. I know, internally, that the truth, my truth, must always come out. My truth must always be illuminated by my inner sun, so taken with brightening up every dark room collecting cobwebs in the interior of my heart, mind, spirit, body. When guilt enters my consciousness so brazenly and without regard for my spiritual upkeep, I have to question why.

Why do you, guilt, feel so confident walking through my house with your muddy, curb-stomping boots? You reek of whisky and tobacco, and you're probably high on something. You sneer at me because you know you hold the smallest parts of me that desire so greatly to please. In your wretched-ass pocket, you have the parts of me that want so deeply to be accepted by the world in the way I'm driven to accept the world around me — even at its worst. So, I admit it. Is that what you want? Yeah? You can hold those parts of me, then. I give you permission…But you don't want my permission, do you? You don't want it because your aim and pleasure is to take. You take the fragile and tender parts of people in your path and extract the tiniest bit of an elixir that is the essence within them, infusing it into talismen you can wear around your neck with pride. I thought I heard jangling as you entered through the corridor of my mind.

I'm onto you.

But I see you with clarity now.

I'll be honest, I feel tender. Even to the touch; as I bring my fingertips to my neck in an effort to soothe myself, I shudder at my own caress. I gather it's because I've opened myself up so widely, so deeply, to allow the protective masculine presence of the sun to shine through my hurt and hold me.

As I suture myself up and heal over the coming days, I'll remember guilt as an important element of the me I'm on my trajectory to be. And when I see you again, guilt — yes, I'm talking to you — don't you dare try and approach me. Stay in the corner. I'll recognize you and take what I need.

That's all.