There was a man

There once lived a man, a lonely man. He lived in a big city, but the big city lived at a distance from him.

A city of empty streets stuffed with judgmental eyes staring him down.

The man himself didn’t know where life had gone wrong. His studio bed touched his toilet and his sink sat above his head; but he had managed to move into the city. 

HE had made it! Those punks DIDN’T. So what if he was packed in like a sardine?

HE had MADE it.

But just maybe, he should have been nicer to those old friends of his. Talking to someone else at times was fun when you’re lonely.

The man sighed.

For the first time in his life he said, “I regret it.” 

The man stopped walking, and he did the unthinkable, he turned back.

His glorious rise to the silver city, now looked like a frantic climb up, stumbling through life, lucky at every turn.

The man learned to hate. And HATE his life he did. 

“I regret, how I talked to my mother!” The man shouted in pain. He cried, in the name of regret for his mommy.

He had become a sad pathetic man, “Nothing changed mother. I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

The man looked at the reels of his past. Every stumble, every choice scrutinized by his all seeing eyes. “No mercy left to this sinner!” he shouted at the naive fool who fell flat on his face.

Arrogantly believing himself to be greater than he was, but he was nothing more than an unpaid clown.

The man was swallowed by regret. A regret so profound he was forever broken, never whole.

When the man finally turned forward his gaze fell upon his silver road. The silver had become pavement, littered with trash and the unhoused.

The man had aged considerably, now walking with a permanent slouch and a constant glare. The dirt of his past had vomited all over his present.

The steel beams he had danced around now trapped him under the rubble of forlorn.

The man looked down at his aged hands in fear. Failing to rid himself of the new bend of his back, the weight of regret too heavy for him to carry, alone.

The man had walked alone for so long he had forgotten, what it meant to stroll.

“I regret!” The man shouted at the concrete jungle stumbling forward weakly his new slouch throwing off his balance.

“Why did I lose myself in regret for so long?” The man cried for himself, he had lost his precious time.

‘Where did the time go?’ The man wished he could stop himself from turning around, from looking to the past.

‘How could I be so stupid?’ Tears streamed down his face snot dripping onto the hard pavement. He mourned his lost time, and he regretted his arrogant choice. He prayed to take it back, he begged to forget Regret.

But he couldn’t. The past was ever present but just out of reach. The past was crueler then a distant future;

A distance the man won’t ever close.

The man was a broken model, a soul trapped within the past.

He walks but he doesn’t walk like the rest of us. 

His feet dragged against the cold pavement, lifeless.

But this didn’t last long, the man was always meant to walk. And he had a plan—

Caution; his new favorite word.

‘How could he protect his future from the petty jaws of the past?’ The man grinned amazed at his own genius, for he had outsmarted the trap of the past.

The man became careful with his every step, making sure failure was not an option. And he didn’t, not anymore.

The man stopped stumbling he walked much more steadily, with renewed confidence.

The man put on the coat of decorum and dignity. He hid his slouch under the wall of experience.

The man became proud of his accomplishments turning to the person behind him to brag.

Funny was this being named experience, mistaken for his father, wisdom.

But, the fool beside the man was sprinting, he didn’t care if he fell flat on his back, proud even when he knelt, antipathetic to the notion of rest. 

“Fool,” The man muttered joining the group of surrounding, judgmental, eyes. He knew the fool will fail at some point, like he did.

The man stood on his canopy of experience disdainful of the fools who came after him.

So the man pressed foward walking cautiously, careful with his steps.

The man grew confident in his learned fears, his back slouched even more, and he resisted it no longer. Instead he wore it like a badge proud at his adaptability.

‘Only the learned men learned to slouch,’ he scoffed at the fool and his straightened spine.

Yet when he turned to his side, the fool was far ahead not slowing down at all. Refusing to stop for the rest. “What!”

The man angered that the pathetic fool could overtake him; sped up his own pace hurriedly, but he tripped over his own feet and he fell. 

The man’s pride hurt more than the fall. He was not naive anymore.

Sobering up, the man continued with his caution. But he swore to be even more careful. Casting away his ego for caution.

The man came up with a genius plan, he would turn back and make sure every step was done perfectly, so he wouldn’t trip.

His first step was perfect, he had made sure of it. 

Yet on his second the man tripped over his own hair, face colliding with asphalt.

Staring down at his fallen teeth in indignation.

“Ahh!” The man fell to his knees searching the concrete for his teeth. Blood poured out of his busted lips and gums, coating the rough ground beneath him.

The man was searching a puddle, hands coated in blood. He bit back tears whimpering against the guttural pain.

The man wept for his lost pearls. He regretted it all, his stupidity, his arrogance; but worst of all he hated, “Regret,”

It was her that conniving harlot who seduced him into turning around.

Who chased him at every milestone.

Who accosted him for attention.

“It was all you regret! I regret my Regret!” The man angered, kicked away the bloody road. 

In his anger in his fear the man did the unthinkable he looked up.

He stared past the now familiar concrete, into the distant silver towards the endless road and he understood;

‘what I had to do.’

The man wasn’t being forced to walk the endless road of pitfalls—

So he didn’t

The man left the road and bought himself a house. A beautiful present that would keep regrets wiles away from him.

And the man smiled a broken smile, face drenched in dried blood and dirt—

He had finally outsmarted Regret, the mistress of nightmares.

And yet on the first day of his new home, someone knocked on his door.

The man opened it curiosity killing his reason, and there she stood—Regret;

Regret smiled a deep conniving smirk, “May I come in?”

“No! Never!” The man shouted in rage slamming the door on her hiding behind it

hands shaking, he looked through his tiny peephole and Regret had left him.

The man laughed loudly, “I WONG! MMF I DIF IT! HHAHAHA!”

Gums smacked against brocken teeth and his tongue got stuck along the way.

cough cough cough

The man broke into a manic coughing fit, but he didn’t care. Today was his first night free of regret.

HE had gotten the last laugh, and it was beautiful.

But the next day, regret returned with the same question, only to leave empty handed once again.

She did the same the following day, and the next after that.

And after time took its toll, the man had become an old man. He had grown used to the sight of regret every day, anticipating her.

Opening the door before the woman could knock he smiled at her, a cup of coffee in hand.

“May I come in?” Regret asked once again,

“and if I say yes?” Before the old man could laugh at the woman, he saw Regret take a step forward to enter; and he panicked, “No! Go away!”

Regret only laughed.

Regret walked away from his home.

A home she was unwelcome to.

The man sighed in relief grinning triumphantly. Yet he stared at the distant regret with forlorn.

And the man realized something, he was in love with Regret.

‘How could I be so blind?’

And the old man promised himself to invite her in tomorrow, yet all he could do was wait—

for Regret had stopped knocking on his door. 

The man was listless for weeks, mechanically going through his colorless days.

And the old man wept in realization—he was always in love with Regret, but because of his stupidity he had wasted his youth running away from her.

The old man tried to leave his house and enter the road once again in search of his estranged beloved—yet he wasn’t welcome.

Regret was his only friend. Regret was his only visitor. Without her, his house was abnormally large.

A space unfulfilled, no decorative furniture for whose picture could he hang on his wall?

The old man waited in his empty home. Alone.

Because he wasn’t staring up at Regret above;

He smiled, spitting out “I know—I shouldn’t have turned around.”

“Do you regret it?” She smiled down at the old man, who now lay on his deathbed.

The old man let out a breathless chuckle, and before he could respond he let out his final breath.

She shook her head pitying the blind old fool who so believed that the silver road had a direction.