Regret Is All

Regret is all, it's only human
An emotion with an intimate audience
The tinge of shame and imperfection
And the taint, for we were never innocent

For some can never descend the mountain of regret
They can't let go of the history or even decide to forget
Forever revisiting the past, vivid scenarios replayed
It's hard to live in the bed of remorse that they've made

Questioning whether the requisite words could have been found
Or whether alternative actions could have been summoned
Standing on the verge, poised between restraint and impulse
Rueing whether different actors might have changed the outcome

Communal regret is often the essence of cultural memory
To find oneself laying down markers of collective identity
Intimations of free will weighed against chaos theory
The direction of the arc of time and missed opportunities

Regret is all, it's a deficiency disease
Testimony to the fallibility of memories
Or sometimes to a surfeit of imagination
The raw materials of life, regret is an imposition

Regret, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Forever Regret by The RH Factor
• I Missed by Surface
• Congratulations by Vesta Williams
• We almost lost Detroit by Gil Scott-Heron
• Non je ne regrette rien by Edith Piaf

Vaguely related: Decision to Forget. The theme is buyer's remorse.

File under: regret, culture, observation, perception, wist, decisions, Buyer's Remorse, poetry, toli

Writing log: March 31, 2022