What’s worse, abandonment or else
the guilt of breaking someone’s heart?
I’d rather that my heart be stabbed
by some beloved’s dagger-blade
than do the wounding bit myself
and have remorseful feelings start:
dark nights when restful sleep is grabbed
as though by muggers, sins are weighed,
self-condemnation swamps the brain ...
that’s when you feel another’s pain
and long to take it back again.
Richard Fleming
