INDULGENCE

(From the Latin: indulgentia, from indulgeo, to be kind or tender)

Confiteor:

I am currently enjoying the rottenest cup of coffee in the world.

This may seem an odd statement, if you know me well.
Many and legion have heard me bitch and carp and whine
about Yankee coffee in hotel rooms
or the freeze-dried crap I tolerated at conventions and colloquia
or the diluted-from-concentrate junk
I drank five cups at a time
in the college cafeteria.
This is none of the above.

Let me tell you about Hate.
I know Hate. I know hatred.
I know it like a hot glow under the soul
that lights everything in a pool of blood-red shimmer
so that all of a sudden everything looks poisonous
and rancid.
I'm glad to say I know it more by second-hand experience,
from seeing it in others more than myself.
But, still, I know it.

Culpa:

It is important to know
the properties of things. Like sorrow,
sorrow has a weight of it's own.
Think of it as a blanket: the damper it is,
the heavier; as time passes, it dries, becomes lighter
but you will always know it from the wet, fungal smell.
Joy doesn't have weight so much as a heft.
Like a ball that can be tossed back and forth.
Mirth is the same. No; mirth is more like a Frisbee.
Regret is intangible, like a stench. Guilt is like a stain.
Hate is lightweight. Hate is portable.
That's the real problem. Hate is so light that it is easy
to carry it without realizing it, without acknowledging it,
to pass it on to others.

Memorare:

See, here's the thing:
Why should I let this bounty of dead emotions
ruin the color of my day? Why not indulge
in pungent coffee and and the verdant green world
outside the window where I sit, feet propped up,
head cocked to the side, heart full of hate.

Because I know this place. I know the feeling
rising up from under. I know the shimmer
like heat rising off asphalt. I know that moment
when the air seems to vibrate, when time and motion accelerate
and begin to spin out of control. I try to tell myself
that it was a million years ago, a million miles away.
I try to buy my indulgence with the penance of time.
But the truth is that I can still hear the screaming,
the echo of memory, the clear, cold ring
of guilt

Credo:

Indulgeo:

I am currently enjoying the rottenest cup of coffee in the world.
It is made from freshly ground beans
French roasted and French pressed
the way I like it best, the way I have it almost every morning.
Today, it's poison, a penance.
A friend of mine is going through hell
because of hatred. It has floated up from under the crust of the earth
and colored the world a shimmer of blood-hot red
so that people can't see straight.
It has made people sick and profane.
It has made some people act like strangers
and others act the way you always knew they would
if pressed up against the wall.
It makes people who normally understand things
misunderstand things. It makes people twist fact and emotion
into a barbed wire noose
for an emotional lynching
and call it truth, call it justice.

It's what I always knew would happen.
The sword of Damocles, a rumor of war
if you will. It has turned this cup of coffee
into the rottenest cup of coffee in the world.
And I hate it.

What it's about