Guilt

Anguish sought and found
my center long ago
a stab of lingering agony
icy in intensity
that sliced away all promise
of a future
damned to lonliness
by sickness and slow death,
to leave the remnant
husk I had become
demonic in my hatred.

I ranged across the world
bitterness intimate
in the hate that I engendered
in all I met
who's hurt became my pleasure
their betrayal my desire
their bitterness my hunger
their anguished minds a mirror
I could use to justify my own.

And sometimes
when my present is too normal
I lay wide-eyed
tearful in the sweating dark
afraid to wake the woman who
filled the twisted thing
I had become
with hope,
listening to the echoes
of past pain of others
betrayals enjoyed,
wondering when
my evil will return
to become
new payment for my crimes.