bad habits die hard and sometimes i feel like i’m on the verge of letting one rot, but then at the very last minute, on the brink of some new horizon, i turn back to the corpse, pick up the defibrillator, and send a new shock through its system.
i breathe life into what should be a dead thing and welcome it home like an old friend i’ve outgrown but can’t shake off, as if it’s some essential part of me, incapable of separation without me withering away. sometimes that happens with old friends; they become family, with ties stronger than blood.
blood, blood, blood.
fresh blood drawn from an old scab i can’t help but pick, even though i know better – even though i know it will likey leave a scar. and i wonder how it’s tainted me. i wonder where it’s left its mark.
and can anyone else see but me? or is it a wholly inward kind of shaken, something i can keep solely to myself?
maybe it’s my cross to bear, but wouldn’t i be better off if the burden could be shared?
deep shame is a lonely pit, and now i’m the corpse, stuck six feet under, breathless and watching shovel-fulls of dirt cascade all around me.
i can see the sunlight peeking through the scattered earth. perhaps i have enough in me to reach for new life. and maybe i can leave that other corpse behind. day by day, step forward, grow the distance with enough time.
and like lot fleeing sodom, let me never look back.
when the temptation draws near, will i be flesh or will i be salt?