Taking Responsibility for Another

I am so sorry. Sorry to have destroyed your memories, the relics of your childhood, your culture, an experience I had no right in judging. I am sorry to have sat back and watched from the comfort of my own home, too tired from a long day's work at my computer, too busy worrying about what I was going to wear to care to notice the details, the reality of my destruction, the very thorough job I did at obliterating everything that meant something to you. I am sorry to have then turned it off, my ability to see, to care.

I told myself that it was understandable, that to think of what I'd done, to know the scope of my destruction would be to never sleep again, or smile again without seeing it flash before my eyes, if at all. To care would have meant destroying myself.

And you would have done what I did--save yourself--right?

That doesn't matter.
That doesn't make it right.
To turn your back on another human being, on millions, is to...

I don't know. Its a crime.

But even guilt is something of which to be guilty. Misplaced, something to deflect the truth. Penance does not the past erase, the calculated neglect.

You are beautiful. And imperfect, capable of horrors beyond, I know. But you deserve a different hand. We all do. But in the end, the word "deserving" is nothing, means.

You of all will understand that.

Because, despite this, you are still left in the rubble of your past, your memories, your childhood relics.