Regret Returns Hotline

Good afternoon.

You’ve reached the Regret Returns Hotline.

All emotional refunds must be processed

within thirty years of the original heartbreak.

Please be patient.

All remorse is final.

How may I help today?

You’re calling about a teddy bear

stitched with promises and cheap perfume

“To Jamie, forever yours” in fading thread.

Forever expired sometime last June

We take returns on sentimental junk

If it’s clean of hope and old belief

But yours still reeks of midnight wine

And “I can fix him” grief.

No receipt, no proof, no chance

Jamie’s married now, didn’t you hear?

Someone named Marco, golden retriever

Matching towels, matching fear.

There’s no refunds for the love you gave

No exchanges on the years you bled

Life keeps receipts you never see

And regret signs off in red.

Please hold the line, don’t scream, don’t beg

Your number’s already called.

All remorse is final, darling

And hope is non-refundable.

Ah—hello Gary, back again

Returning what you used to be.

General opinions, banter shields

Mid-table dreams and apathy

Confidence pumped like cheap cologne

To mask the dread of being small.

Your wife just threatened eye contact

At a charity ball

We don’t stock “Nice Guy, Grown Complacent”

That model’s been recalled.

Try “Man Who Asks a Question”

Or “Adult Who Feels At All”

There’s no refunds for the man you were

When comfort sealed your fate.

You can’t return a personality

Just because it came too late.

Please hold the line, don’t clear your throat

We’ve seen this type before.

You wanted safe, you wanted easy

Now you want more.

3:17 a.m. returns only

That’s when futures come undone

The Future She Gave Up arrives intact

Early twenties, pristine shine.

Backpacking trips she never took

Careers left in the “someday” file.

A woman kissed but never called

Lives she’d ruin beautifully;

Still smells like nerve and audacity

Still wrapped in possibility.

We don’t refund futures, sorry love

We just acknowledge then erase.

I’ll give you credit for the present

It expires when you say “too late”.

There’s no refunds for the paths not walked

Or courage left unused.

The present’s all the currency

You’re allowed to lose.

Spend it now or watch it rot

Behind regret’s glass wall

All remorse is final, darling.

The ultimate return.

The life she never lived.

Look in the mirror.

See what’s missing?

That’s because it doesn’t just reflect loss.

It erases you.

There’s no refunds for the games you play

Or souls you tried to trade.

The devil keeps the clever ones

And laughs at those who prayed.

You thought you sold me off to hell

Like spare change in your hand.

But betrayal taught me power

And power rewrote the plan.

Didn’t read the small print, typical mortal. Mistakes you 

Sew in the dark always burn in the light. So listen living 

one be better now not later; because one day your file 

might hit my desk and I remember names all remorse

 is final…