Remorse — is Memory — awake —
Her Parties all astir —
A Presence of Departed Acts —
At window — and at Door —
Its Past — set down before the Soul
And lighted with a Match —
Perusal — to facilitate —
And help Belief to stretch —
Remorse is cureless — the Disease
Not even God — can heal —
For ’tis His institution — and
The Adequate of Hell —
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What do we remember? Good times,maybe, and helping this friend or that. But more the embarrassing, the horrifying things that didn’t seem so bad at the time. Now, here they are, right before us as we’re trying to go back to sleep in the middle of the night, lit before our inner eyes as if by a flame. The cure? There is none. We are in the hell of remorse we made for ourselves. It is in our god-given makeup to stew into eternity over our regrettable actions. Oh, Emily, how well you know me—and the rest of us.
This poem really speaks to me. It discusses the feelings you have after you’ve done something wrong and how they will always linger. The feeling will never go away, not until time can brush it into the past.