Taner's Folly
by
Nathanael Smith

Sometimes I say what I don't mean, and sometimes I don't say what I mean.

Just this evening, I saw a friend speak before he thought, sending a girl home in tears for his thoughtlessness. Sometimes I feel like that. I see myself in the darkest, most guilty light I can find. I say the stupidest things without a second thought, and have to go back and pick up the broken pieces of heart spread all over the room.

I don't want to be like this. I want to honestly be able to look at my life and cheerfully say that I did the best, that I made all the right choices, that I never did anything stupid.

Alas, my requiem shall at last be sung,
full of regret of the great deeds not done
and the not-great deeds done.