On nights like these, it's like my worst mistakes are stuck on repeat, a visual loop of regret and betrayal triggered by some misplaced sense of deja vu. The common thread is guilt, not for a specific action or inaction, but for the consistent state of ignorance that is human life. I lack insight beyond my means, and for that, I am punished by no other but myself. To bear the weight of another's happiness is never something I would voluntarily commit to, as its maintenance becomes, by necessity, exponentially opposed to my own. To maintain the flame, I must supply oxygen. My lungs deplete, and for every breath I take the fire dwindles. The inherent injustice is self-evident; it takes no feat of imagination to understand that the twin roles of supplicant and supplier are not, and have never been, my responsibility. Yet while the human mind may be trained to discern causation from correlation, the human heart knows only the action and the reaction. Pain lingers on, triggered by the familiar sight or sound, oblivious to the absence of the very stimuli that once produced it. The soul is, in its truest form, an echo of experience - and once damaged, a phantom limb.
tl;dr: I want oatmeal cookies, but I'm too lazy to bake and the store always wrecks them with those goddamned raisins.
