If the truth had been told, she would have been righteous,

Would have been justified, 

And nothing would have come of it, 

As nothing more would have been instigated. 

But she did not. 

And that made her as guilty, if not more so, 

As his later, condemnable transgressions were in response to that. 

Otherwise, out of love, he would have readily accepted the blame, 

Taken the rap for having misinterpreted her actions, 

As she claimed he did, though there was nothing that could have been misinterpreted. 

But, in her desire for vengeance, her need to banish him for what she had created with her falsity, 

She willfully mischaracterized everything she could, 

Trying to ruin him for what no normal person would have taken as more than stupidity by revising history to suit her spite. 

He could prove it, but no one listened to him. 

And for that she stood guilty, as guilty as he, 

Having provoked the tiger with lies, broken his heart, and damaged his soul, 

Betraying him and betraying herself, her faith, her honesty, her dignity.

Whatever character she had, if any, died that day, an instant death. 

She painted him guilty of that which he had never done, rearranging time and passing off delusions as truths.

She couldn’t even prove most of it, but she cried, played up her sex so dishonestly. 

Though she could appeal to her own hurt, betrayal, it was not justified. 

So she stood guilty, unpunished but guilty, and she would remain guilty, 

Being too stubborn, too dishonest, too trapped in her own lies to ever confess in any meaningful way. 

She had wanted to hurt him, for him to hurt himself …. and he did. 

But he did not end himself for her, which she would have used to garner pity until her own end … though she did kill him. 

And she would be responsible for that until they both passed into dust. 

But she could not claim to have been as damaged, though she did so. 

She did not change her life in any way, had no real discomfort. She had no hell, except that which she condemned herself to with her egotism, 

Whatever she suffered she inflicted upon herself, because she knew none of it had been real. She had known him and pretended she didn’t, as part of her grand scheme. 

She bore no real weight from it, just her perpetual neuroses he had not created.

And now she would forget and seek the plastic life, 

Impervious to her own fault and denying her faith. 

Because that is what she was. 

And her god would see it and send her the penance she refused to accept on her own.

She would take it, unthinkingly, driven by shallowness, 

As she strove to repeat her own past mistakes to maintain her illusions.

She would choose a real monster, not the one she’d invented, 

And she would never see it coming. 

Then she would know what she had given up, what she had trapped herself in … and still deny him, because her heart did not work. 

And she would fake it, having her illusion but nothing worth a damn. 

She would reap the hell she had invented, a shadow of a person. 

Karma is a bitch that way.