Regret

It feels like your whole body is
pumping lead. Or maybe
like your heart is drowning in mercury.

It feels like Hiroshima
inside your brain.
Like suddenly every mistake
every fault
every
came crashing down, all bearing the same message saying
“Too late.”

It smells like the rotten stench of a science experiment
gone wrong.

It sounds like the three words:
“It’s not you”
“But you didn’t”
“No other way”
or sometimes just

nothing

It’s me wishing this was all just
a beautiful lie, a nightmare, and when I wake up,
you’ll be back with me.
But the lights dim every night, and

you’re not.