A Most Undesirable Sentiment

Chronic remorse is a most undesirable sentiment; if you have done wrong repent and address yourself to the task of doing better next time. On no account brood over your wrong doing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean. - Aldous Huxley

I awake cold, and wanting.
Remorse, the black shadow
blunting my resolve,
leaps into focus.
I wear it like a sodden coat.

It's raining, everything steely gray,
baleful and dark and threatening,
a low end, depressing street
housing a thousand chills.

The freezing rain pelts
my face and the effort
to hold my penance weakens.
I lose concentration,
stumble on the uneven ground,

and in just that instant I truly
realize that there is nothing
I can do. There is no one to
petition, or beseech, or to curse.

There is only me.
I don't know how I'll sustain myself.