After “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Iliana Pate

After “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

Iliana Pate

Guilt drives us all on,

Towards redemption or to despair.

Like an unsympathetic ocean

Breaking first your body,

Then your mind,

And then, if you can’t swim away,

Breaking the deepest convictions of your soul.

Stop. close your eyes.

Breath in breath out.

You’ve spilled blood in the water,

But you can’t let your own fall too.

Reach out,

Close you desperate fist

Around your frail identity.

Guilt, formed by your own morality,

Only seeks to clear away the cobwebs

From the widow of that same morality

Through which you view the world.

So, hold on, hold on

To the fire in your soul.

It’s only yours to have,

And only yours to judge.

And in the end, the choice is yours.

The guilt, the pain, is your possession.

The world decides what you endure,

But you decide the final resolution.

You can strengthen your resolve

Or you can let your fist uncurl

And let your life become an empty broken-record rhyme.