Author's Note: I wrote this originally as just a random thought about squirrels, then it changed as I began to emotionally attach to it and I turned it into a piece of 'slam poetry,' which is a type of poetry that is meant to be read out loud. I formatted it differently for here to be more of an essay than anything else, but the piece speaks loudest when expressed vocally.
There's this unspoken rule about hitting a squirrel. You'll do whatever it takes to safely avoid the critter, but if you hit it, only a few moments of remorse will occur before the squirrel's carcass, and your feelings of guilt, are left behind on the road of the past. No one judges a person for hitting that squirrel; in fact, they tend to never mention hitting the small, furry creature. There's some sort of unmentioned rule that allows this to happen, without any sort of later discussion or reflection upon the incident. It's easier to forget about the situation - to ignore it like that little bit of acne on the side of your face you wish would just go away already.
Maybe if you push it out of your mind, it'll disappear. It'll become an uncomfortable, almost-abandoned memory that will be mostly just a foggy afterthought, unless it is pondered upon. You'll think of it like you reflect on that time you upset your parents and had to watch disappointment flood over their faces. Sickness boils in your stomach while you remember their complete and utter disgust and it makes the whole situation seem alive and not a dead, distant memory. It is kept inside your head only by the indecency of the human brain - not by will.
Goodness knows how long it'll take to forgive. Not them, but yourself. All you ever wanted was to make them proud and be that responsible, successful child every parent dreams of. You know your parents will love you no matter what but that doesn't bring back the little bit of sparkle that used to live in their eyes each time they saw you. It wasn't love - no, it was respect and appreciation and admiration. Three words you pray only time will restore, because your actions are restricted like thick, unbreakable vines that creep around each of your limbs and force you to keep your past in the bottom of your right pocket, stuck between the penny you found in the couch cushion and the crumpled up paper you forget picking up but remember once you study it closely.
No one knows why we pick these items up. Their value is minuscule. They're more of a hassle than anything else, yet we still hold on to them until the day ends and it is time to bid farewell and toss them back in their rightful place. Maybe they enjoyed feeling appreciated for those few hours; perhaps by clinging to them and believing, even just for a split second, that they had worth was enough for them to change their entire self-perception.
Aren't we that coin, after all? Or that crinkled, old Wal Mart receipt we later realize isn't even ours. We feel like discarded items that have no use or purpose, no value or reason to exist. We are so, very small in the giant disaster we call a society, with it's ever-conflicting views and misconceptions that weigh in by the dozen.
We are one mistake after another and we are the question you leave blank and hope to find the answer for elsewhere on the test. We are that awkward parking job you don't bother to fix because you don't think anyone else will care. We are that time you go with your after thought and push away your gut feeling, your initial reaction - though you later regret it as your stupidity sinks in. We are the missing four of clubs that makes the entire deck of cards useless. But no one ever stopped to think about the lost card and how lonely it was, did they? We are the leftover pin when you did everything right to get the spare, but something happened and the ball rolled into the gutter at the last second. We are discouraging. We are frustrating. We are that squirrel you hit but continue to drive away from, because you don't want to feel like a murderer anymore. We are seemingly unimportant but we DO matter. At least it's comforting to think we do.
