PROSE TO POETRY | EXCERPT
On Guilt
Excerpt from a main character’s diary in my second novel
When you wake up to guilt every day, hanging there like a dead puppy, the first thing you do is hate yourself.
Start the day with an abundance of loathing, while you brush and wash up.
And as you shower, you realize it’s all in the skin!
You scrub it harder, thinking it is good to make it go.
Then you realize it is rooted way beyond the skin.
The skin bleeds and all that is left of the waning guilt are a few shreds of muscles.
What else do you need to flesh it out again!
Afterwards, you sit down, take time to separate the strands of the big fat guilt and you find it is all a bland lie, stumped with drops of tears you stole from the charity box at the shop lining the street of oblivion.
You had forgotten you had left fingerprints all over the box, and that you will be caught no sooner than you trip the light fantastic.
“Are you done with today’s episode?” you are asked.
“Yes, for our sake. Let’s go about the day now. See you up tomorrow.” You pause, tentatively. “Again.”
© Sana Rose 2020
This is a prose poem I had written and later used in the diary entry of a main character in my second novel ‘The Storyteller’. The novel is speckled with such ruminations under the title ‘From the Storyteller’s Diary’ until the end. The manuscript is in querying stage as of now.
Also ‘From the Storyteller’s Diary’:
Sana Rose is an award-nominated novelist, poet, physician, counseling professional, freelance writer and mom. She is based out of Kerala, India. Her debut women’s fiction novel ‘Sandcastles’ was shortlisted for ARL Literary Awards 2018 for Best Author soon after publication.
