Today while absent-mindedly making flash cards for my impending failure of an Environmental Science final, I found myself staring blankly at the television, entering its fourth hour of blaring CNN, if only to perpetuate my knack for over-empathizing.
When the commercials finally hit, I realized I had accidentally jotted down "bioaccumulation of guilt," rather than the actual answer: "bioaccumulation of toxics in marine life." Now, the word "guilt," had not been mentioned nor written anywhere on the program during this time, so I couldn't exactly place why my pen-holding-hand had so chosen to put it there for me.
Despite a lack of reason for its existence on my index card, the concept of bioaccumulated guilt is somewhat fascinating.
My guilt comes in many different forms: a broken sibling, the bags below my mother's eyes, a slice of birthday cake, the mistakes I made with you, and all reflections. It sits in a cabinet below my ribs that I unlock only on nights I can't sleep and am feeling self-sacrificial.
When I do venture to find the key, I can hardly open the drawer; it's so full.
Faults escaping like air from a balloon, screaming as they stream out. I guess I'm a hoarder, a hoarder of guilt. I like to adopt it from others and give it a different name. I bathe it, feed it, put it to bed. But I'd be lying if I said I don't wake up sweating at three, its muzzle bearing teeth inches from my neck.
Last night the beast was a girl I once knew, who crashed her car and walked, leaving three friends dead in the wreckage. It could have been me. All those times I've looked away to change the music or drink some coffee or catch your eye in the rear-view mirror. It could have been you amongst the smoking steel. I don't think I cope that well; even fantastical vehicular manslaughter makes me want to kill myself.
The planet's guilt must be a heat, that ricochets off of everything and cooks us slowly like frogs in French pots. It must hang like a yellow, hazy cloud, suffocating us without a sound. Because the individual's guilt is not his own, rising from his clothes in fumes unseen, permeating lungs of children who don't know what guilt means. We all make it, we all kick it up, but nobody says a thing.
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