Shame

The feeling of shame has been overbearing all my life. Always beings clumsy, out of the place. Class reunion: old wounds reopened. Yet it was a situation where I also felt aloof, observing from a distance. Adolescent fantasies of vengeance wiped away. All the passing years hanging heavy like lead. The price of reaching some sort of maturity and stability is the heaviness. In my younger years the feeling of shame was almost daily. School was like an ongoing gauntlet. Other kids mocking my blushing face. I reacted strongly, felt strongly about things. Both excitement and shame swept through my body like fire, burning everything in its way. Now everything has become more lukewarm. Prozac turned the old choleric me to one more phlegmatic. About which I can't be entirely sad.