“Karma” Written by Shelly Moore
Copyright © 2021 LimitlessStimulus.com

Tell me you don’t believe in karma,
And I’ll tell you I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

Every bit as real as I am.

Alive and breathing,
As a sentient being.

Heart beating.

Taking the sins that had been committed against me and mirroring them times three against their perpetrator.

And I’ve felt guilty.

Many nights I’ve felt the familiar, heavy weight of guilt,
Weighing me down and preventing sleep,
For the mere potentiality of causing what another suffers through now.

As if maybe, years ago, I’d prayed just a little too hard for vengeance.

As if I’d somehow manifested and persuaded the long arm of karma’s law into my favor.

And perhaps I had.

Perhaps there was a time when I’d cried so desperately into my pillow at night that the ever-expanding energy of my sorrow exploded outward from within my body and released into the universe,
Like a force of nature, set free,
Unchained and unrestrained,
Where it was able to take form.

To solidify.

To gain traction and to grow as if in utero.

As if a tiny seed had been created from within my darkest moment,
A tiny seed born of utter despair, hopelessness, and helplessness,
Which was then nurtured, fed and watered, by the unsympathetic apathy of his continued rage.

His careless abandon at my every heartfelt plea.

His inability to accept responsibility for the staggering amount of senseless pain and suffering his actions brought upon someone he once claimed to love.

His clenched fists sending me away again.

And again.

And again.

As I begged on my knees,
He took everything.

I had nothing left, save my shattered soul,
So I wept; soul starved, I pleaded with him for a breadcrumb,
Searching desperately for a hint of empathy within his eyes,
But he stood above me with the key to my cell around his neck,
And he clenched his fists.

Again.

And again.

And my soul crumbled,
My will collapsed,
My sense of Self died,
Again and again,
Every time he’d clench his fists.

So I prayed for justice.

I prayed for fairness.

I prayed for the rebalancing of the scales.

I prayed so hard.
I prayed so hard.
I prayed so hard.

And though I apologized,
I apologized,
I apologized,
I took on the full blame hoping it’d force the healing process to begin in his heart.

And though I did the work,
I did the work,
I did the work and I forgave.

And though I brought love for him back into my heart where pain had scorched lasting scars,
Karma’s seed,
Once planted,
No longer requires the sustenance of our prayers.
It detached from me long ago and took on a life all its own.

So maybe I am responsible for your current pain and suffering,
And for that, I am deeply sorry.

Because in my darkest moments, long ago, I had absolutely wept aloud in a voice trembling and barely recognizable as my own,
I screamed into the skies above me,
For justice.

As tears, hot and heavy, fell from my eyes as if they were Gaia’s own vengeful storm clouds,
I prayed,
I prayed,
I prayed for you to feel even the smallest pinch of the pain you had caused me.

Just so you’d know,
So you’d empathize,
So you’d truly understand,
That the depth and severity of my punishment under your clenched fists,
Was so very disproportionate,
To any crime I may have committed.