recontacting

It was good to reconnect. It was good to talk and know that I was not completely faultless. I embrace the guilt, like a good catholic although I am not one. Hair shirt. Cat o nine tails. I am sorry for your pain. I am sorry that all these years later you use the word 'damage' and remember the bad things just as vividly as I remember the good. There is no truth. There is only he said, she said. We take the story apart and facets of it slip easily into memory. Flat little slithers of truth lodging in us like a clot. Nothing passes easily.

20 years. A blink. A tired sigh. All of it dissolving into the beginning of what might become a friendly banter. And we have not changed, we two. And I have not changed. I am spike edged and full of hurt. Careful of me. I am not a bad person but there is poison in the spines and you should tread cautiously.