Guilt’s Insistence
by Odin Roark

One’s perception
Often lingers amidst stench and flames
Where personal battles fought
Leave only wounds unhealed

Unsettling dust
And billowing spirits
Weave through porous walls
Embedded with crustaceous regret

Such battered pasts
Remain painful
Awaiting our will to cast aside
Our self-imposed eclipse

And often…

Duration too can tire
Rendering time’s horizon
To drift from consciousness
Becoming but faded memory
Leaving one shackled
With guilt’s insistence