By Dr Joseph Hawkins, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Clinical lead for End of Life Care, Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust. Twitter: @JoeHawk75825077

Regret is anti- onomatopoeic
It doesn’t babble like a brook,
Or sigh, like the breeze
But I understand how regret feels
Nights spent longing
Laughing at private mistakes
Conversations never held
Played out in the imagination in
A million different ways
A hole in the chest- that rises to fill
My mind with invisible fingers
That scratch upon my skull with frustrated
Movements questing for what has never
Been.

‘I regret nothing’,
‘Live for today’
So many words wasted in denial
Of human experience
On the dreams of sociopathy- life absent regret
By definition.
If only we’d learn regret is
The harsh master of experience
Without regret, there is no lesson
No reason not to repeat mistakes.
Hollow choices lie behind me
Hard and heavy weights upon my soul

I regret nothing
For regret is just a side effect
And I chose the pill that made me
Feel so good
Until it didn’t.
Regret has taught me much,
I wish I could forget those lessons
Yet who would I be without
my regret?

Also by this Author:

10 Golden rules of palliative care on how to manage a dying person – you’ll never guess number 4!
The ink is dry
Don’t stare at the light