Terrible

Prompt #96: Write about the most terrible thing you've ever done. ~ Karen

Terrible as in distressingly bad or serious
or extremely unpleasant or disagreeable?
Shocking? Illegal, measured by Class C
up to capital? Most leaves no room for vacillation,
up or down, this or that. What about time?
Does youth mitigate? How about the time Mother
found me and the boy who lived in that house
with a quarter stuck irretrievably in brick mortar
on the front porch, found us exploring in the back seat
of the Studebaker? In an Amsterdam coffee shop
trying a first with another marijuana novice?
We tried but never figured out how to inhale...
Hating myself enough to pack on three hundred pounds?
Wasting hours, weeks, months, years on stupid games?
Getting caught letting Dumpy copy my spelling homework?
Lying so often, so well I'm darned good at it?
Skipping church for months at a time? Telling hurtful secrets
about someone major in my life? All of these.
None of these. They belong to times past, not now. 

Selfishness—self-centeredness! 
That, we think, is the root of our troubles.* The worst thing I do now is remaining in self
when I've been shown the best, the brightest way. 

Alcoholics Anonymous, page  62