Judgement

Judgment

(Or, why I can identify with Xena's pain)*

When your parents separated,
You promised to always watch over your brother,
Assuming responsibility beyond your years.
But, tiring from your fatherly role, one day
You told him you were too busy to take him to the game.

So, instead, riding with a friend too inexperienced to drive on that
slippery, wintery road,
it happened--
The screeching brakes,
The smashing glass,
The crunching metal.

A week in the ICU-- tubes feeding and draining his body.
After this week of anguish, you absolved yourself of your sin-- or so you
thought.
He left, healing in body, but not in soul.
Left with pain, he needed to quell it-- but the prescriptions were gone.

He found other answers.
Fortune squandered on needles and narcotics,
His life became a wastebasket.

"Look what you did to me," he said. "you made me like this," he said.

But you left, writing him off-- or so you thought.

But your nightmares had only begun.
Racked with guilt,
You couldn't sleep.
Damning yourself in your own mind, you promised your God you would take his
place in
Hell if He would only forgive him.

If he would only forgive you.

After months of therapy and countless antidepressants, you went to him.

"I'm sorry," you said.
"I forgive you," he said.

*Inspired by Callisto-- I, too, had created a monster-- or so I thought.

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