Guilty as Charged

Lyrics

"I'm sorry," I whispered as I quivered my lips, sitting beside my friend of many long years. We haven't had a talk like this for a while. What happened before had escaped my memory, but the idea of me causing him pain didn't feel right to my conscience. "That was so long ago; it's fine." But was it really? Everybody loves to tell you what's right and what's wrong when you're hurting because of it. Not even a quarter of those people will tell you the same thing when you're on the other side of the coin. I sat as an audience member in the courthouse when they finally let my sister free. It was a confusing moment for me, for us—my entire family and church burst into tears as the judge said, "You've served your time." It was almost too surreal to understand. She had been locked away for the longest decade of my life, after a car accident. Growing up, all I could get used to was her voice on the compressed phone line, accompanied by this cold, robot voice, repeating the same words like a mantra: "Thank you for using Global Tel Link. This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded." We bonded, hugged, and made up for the lost time. I gave it about a week, and there she was again, indulging in the same habits that she was booked for, all that time ago. My brother is still in prison as we speak. Matter of fact, it's gotten worse—he's moved into a higher-security cell for some confidential rep he's scored himself while he was in the system. I can name so many family members of mine, those familial ties to nothing but a compressed voice and that cold one, tangled together like the nation's most pitiable twins. His crime? What's it matter? I can barely recall the last memory I have with him, but I know that it was us playing around with Nerf guns when I was eleven years old. I can't blame them at all for what happened. I can't feel the need to blame at all. The only thing I feel is fear. Fear that one day I'll make some big mistake, and I'll lose all the wiggle room I take for granted. Maybe I'm spoiled—everywhere I turn, I see examples of people who didn't have the grace I do, as they slowly fade into naught but compressed voices on my phone line. Examples of what not to do, every time I pass through an empty room in my house. I guess it's not so clear what makes us all that different. My friend had always told me that one day has the power to change your life. That it doesn't even necessarily have to be your fault. The more I think about it, the more I realize that he's right. Every time I've made a mistake, I could only thank God that it hasn't been on that day. Time can only tell, but if the Lord wills that I have to testify, for myself or for anybody else, I'll beat the jury to the sentence. At least, the sentence that's been on my mind since I first sat in the back of a police car, when I was eight. "Guilty as charged."