Notes from Exile: Remorse
Log/Verse: daily reflections from prison, written every morning at my bunk. Part poem, part log book.
In the wake of this week’s essay on Remorse, I chose this piece. Returning home from prison is supposed to be an ending, a new beginning. But for many of us, it’s just another chapter in the sentence. The relief is short-lived. The guilt, the shame, the weight of what we did, or didn’t do, follows us through the door. This verse is about that uneasy homecoming, and how remorse refuses to stay behind.
RETURNING HOME
The relief fades sooner
than you’d
think.
The old failures
still reside
there,
and prison makes the trip
home with
you.
All those plans you
made,
those memories you
forged,
the new life you
imagined,
what happened to
those?
Those sins you own,
hound you,
dog you,
torture you.
Those sins you own,
just never leave
you.
You can read more of my log verse, published in Minutes Before Six, a literary journal that publishes writing by formerly incarcerated writers.