I can't get those words out of my head.
"You had your last chance"
Etched like a scar from a firebrand down to the very soul.
I could not understand why they haunted me,
Until now.

I was raised on the idea that there is some cosmic being out there
Loving and forgiving to all.
Yet its followers were anything but.
Judgemental, cold, and unforgiving.
Every week I would be reminded that I was forgiven.
But every day I was reminded that in reality, I am not.
Eventually, I would leave, but the hope of forgiveness and the seed of guilt that was planted in me would persist.

And that seed grew.
From my minor failures in high school, to catasrophic failures in college,
From months of therapy that resulted in no change
To a year long stop to try to sort my life out,
To finding a job I wasn't interested in, to all the little failures to clean up a small mess or to plan out an evening.
From every disappointment it drew nourishment and grew into a tall tree with a thick and wide canopy to block out the light.
Yet I continued to search that brightness, sometimes successfully scaling the tree, sometimes not, but always trying.

It was until those words were spoke unto me from my last fall,
"You had your last chance"
That I looked up and saw in its entirety the black arbor that disfigured and darkened the very tapestry of the sky, broken in places from previous falls.
That I saw my body, bloodied, scraped and beaten.
That I saw the earth and the many that had been injured to cushion my falls.
And then I thought,
"Maybe, the light of forgiveness, the ability to fell this tree really isn't meant for me."
"Maybe, I am predestined to fall over and over again, scarring the earth and all that I land on, never to successfully grasp the light I seek."
"Maybe, I don't deserve another chance."
And so, I sat underneath the tree and waited for its darkness to overtake me.

But, as I waited
My desire for the light only increased.
At first a spark that easily extinguished itself, but slowly growing into the intensity of a roaring fire.
But I know that if I climb again I will hurt something again, as I will inevitably fail and come crashing down.
If I cannot resist this call of the heart, then I will carve it out.
Rip it out and crush it.
If the pursuit of my desires, and the constant failure to reach it, begets only pain and sorrow to the earth.
Then my heart must be evil, black and twisted.