I am finding it very hard to breathe
because I am looking
at what happened
and I am looking
because I have to look
and I have to say aloud
that I say forgive forgive-
that the words I live by follow as
forgive, do not forget,
and forgive everyone your own sins
and their sins and give away chances,
second chances, fourth chances,
nth chances, like they are balloons-
but I have to confront this
and the truth of it is
that I do not forgive this
and I never can and never will
and this is because
I do not understand it
and I did not understand it then
and I did not speak
and I am amazed at how I managed it
but I remember how the telling of it
felt on my tongue, in my mouth
so unbearable that I could not
get the words out
and the secret did not come out
and when it did it got no better
and when I told therapists I was over it
they never believed me-
they just did not understand
that there is no choice in the matter
like there was no choice in that one-
you have to move on
and there is no other way
but saying I was over it
was a lie I couldn't face the other side of
and saying I was over it
never made me forget it
and learning to forgive
and the importance of forgiveness
may have healed and helped
infinitely, immeasurably,
but I can never forgive this
because I do not understand this
and it is not with me sometimes.
It is with me all the time
and it is now a part of me
that I can't even resent or regret
because look at me now,
I want to say, but who is listening?
Because for some people
a night is a lucky night
and for others, that same night
is the night that everything changes.
I was better, I was better,
I was going to be okay.
With the absent space
where blame should be placed
I point my finger in mirrors
and hate and want to break
right through into upside down world
on the other side where I was the one
who took everything
because on this side
everything was taken
and then I didn't know how much
or what it meant but now
in retrospect I can see huge gaps
hollows and deficiencies
and a part of life that people love,
some even live for, something important
and that part of life was not left for me.
Maybe it makes up for everything
I was born with, the silver spoon
in my mouth, but now I'm choking
on apologies and trying to rationalise
why it might have made some sense,
somehow, but what I've lost
I can ever get back
and I have so much more in life
yet for the rest of it, I'll also have this:
it's left me with hollows
but it's a phantom limb, the memory,
and it's changed the way I see,
the way I speak, and feel, and trust,
and give, and take, and have, and hold.
I was seventeen, now I'm 24 years old
and always say forgive forgive.
I will always forgive. But this,
just this, I have realised now
that there is no way I can figure out how
as it's the one thing that will be
the black echo, staying with me.
The black echo, and the irony
for the name, being Tom Jolly
and within the family
we say love and live and don't be sorry
but I am always sorry
and I am sorry I have the inability
to let this one go so gracefully.
Now I'm all torn strings and scorn
and scratching my way into another dawn
with shatterings and chattering teeth
and shatterings and chattering teeth
with a pile of papers to sit underneath.
I have resorted to rhyme, it seems
so to keep myself from releasing the screams
it's the right time to right myself
and stop the feeling of sick and dizzy
by turning forgiveness into poetry:
You cannot illuminate answers out of shadow|
looking back into the places you'd not want again to go.
Don't ruminate, do not relive.
Forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive.
Don't contemplate, you've got a life to live.
Forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive.
And when you do, do not forget,
for something good will come of all things yet.
