Someone Else’s Mistake Poem by David Harris

Why do I feel haunted
by someone else’s mistake?
It happened long before I knew them,
but it plays on my mind
and it makes no sense to me.
I have made enough mistakes of my own.
So why should I be haunted
by one someone else made.
From time to time, I feel a prisoner
from a mistake I never made.
It plays on my mind
for nights and days at a time.
Then it vanishes for months,
but never entirely goes away.
I will see something similar to what happened,
only to have it come back to haunt me
with this mistake someone else made.

26 January 2009