If you died in this moment,
I would rejoice as the lights
Of the ambulance left my view.
Heavenly retribution years too late,
Maybe it’s fated to be the last fight I lose,
Lose control of a temper born of your abuse.

The guilt of fantasized revenge rises and spills
Into a daily routine of think, feel, don’t do.
It’s always almost too much for my conscience to subdue.
This is the one time I wish I was more like you:
Thoughtless, emotionless, impulsive.

You’ve never blinked at the pain of another.
I shudder at that apathy,
All while craving that distance, that resistance
To common humanity.
You were my childhood monster –
But to beat you is to become you.

Jessie Gutierrez