The Illusion of Forgiveness

The Illusion of Forgiveness

"I hate you".

Everything would be a million times easier

If I could only say those three little words

And actually mean them.

You were the one who started it all;

The one who broke the chains

Containing that agitated, paranoid demon

That I had repelled for 13 years

And, at the same time,

Whose existence I had been

Blissfully unaware of until then.

Those three words you hid from me

For three excruciatingly painful months

Rang true in my heart

Well before they eventually, finally, reached my ears.

I was too much for you.

You were overwhelmed with jealousy,

And left me consumed by sorrow.

My first true loss, my first real lesson.

I yearned to forgive you, to make you see

That I was the bigger person.

I longed to prove you right:

I was the better woman.

Reason won the battle; Logic lost the war.

My Forgiveness was fickle,

And my true colours

Bled through

The paper thin bandages

I had hastily thrown upon my heart.

My scarred, aching heart.

Do you see what you did to me?

You let loose a monster I never knew I possessed.

My course was charted by your envious hands;

Hands that barely knew how to spell our Name.

This was never me. I was never the cynic.

I bore a two-thousand-year-old complex;

It was my duty; my responsibility, to make you see Me.

And so I did, and I would do so again.

My heart is hardened - 

Scarred, but whole - 

I wonder, does yours glitter?

It certainly is not gold.

I took you in, the same way you left me to cast myself out.

Such was the nature of our dynamic.

I always did for you, what you could never do for yourself.

I freed you from me

Because that faithless spine of yours

Betrayed you in the same way it did so many others.

Such was the nature of your core.

Faith - In everyone else's ability to see you for what you are.

Trust - That the world would see behind your eyes.

Pixie dust - The stars in the sky of your private, deserted, world.

I long to go back in time

And do it all over again

So that I could once again sense your anger, feel your tears

Behind that violet veil.

I wish I could shatter your world

On a loop,

So that I could relive your shock, laugh at your confusion

And reminisce on our shared pain.

Forgiveness: too tough an ask

For the both of us.

I will never forget what you took from me.

I cannot forgive myself for what I feel.

To this day, you inspire the very worst in me. 

I can only hope that I return the favour.