What Kind of Life Has It Been

I think it's my least favorite emotion.

With Anger you can break something, or right a nasty letter, or curse and complain at the guilty til you're red in the face.
With Guilt, you are the guilty.

With Sadness you can mope and cry, and eventually you'll be cheered up and happy.
Or at least you can sink into a sort of melancholy state where you almost feel nothing at all.
Guilt won't go away. It eats at you.

With Pain, it hurts but you know there's a reason.
You know that if Pain wasn't there to tell you your hand was in the fire, you might not have a hand.
Guilt just tells you what you already know.

It's this feeling, as the authors always say, in the pit of your stomach, constantly reminding you of what you've done and how horrible it is.
It dominates your feelings and your thoughts and seems to say, it'll go away if you just change the past. Too bad you can't.
And you try everything you can do to make it right, to make it up, but it isn't enough.

And the only cure is forgiveness and time. Forgiveness alone does nothing right away, but with just time it will keep eating at you until you're forgiven.
It's the worst of the lot. My least favorite emotion.