spice

Regret is a bitter spice, fit only
to season dishes prepared in the past
by the master chef called Spite,
for future consumption cold
during solitary banquets of colorless dolor,
in the impeccable oneness of years to come,
handmade by our own dumb complicity,
as we sit motionless marching through minutes
of exquisite dimness, folding into hours
of powerfully harrowing shallowness
before listing, and toppling listlessly into days
of sameness, piling up into weeks
of plain, dull pain,
until finally

- anesthetized by an endless injection
of the sumptuous numbness of numberless months,
we succumb, and conclude
that in the end -

regret is a bitter spice,
and we ought to find better
ways to season our food.