26

Blatantly dismissed at first.
Mistaken for surrender,
an admission filed under weakness.
I pressed it into a corner of the mind,
where unwanted thoughts are stored:
with apologies rehearsed too late,
and names that still tighten the jaw.

It did not stay quiet.
It pulsed —
at a low, encroaching rhythm,
threading itself through memory,
through the architecture of the chest.
Something heavy, unresolved,
learning the cadence of my breath.

I called it strength to avoid.
Pride mistook silence for resolve.
Held myself impenetrable,
as if rigidity were refuge,
as if clenched fists could contain
what was starting to melt.

Time has its way
of softening what it cannot absolve.
The sharpness is dulled.
The ache learns shape.
What once felt malignant
begins, imperceptibly,
to redefine itself.

Something opens.
Not contingently,
but the way earth does
after long rain.
A loosening.
Lightness spilling through the lattice of ribs,
flowering in the slits
where pain had seeded.

I first noticed the absence:
weightless mornings,
fewer rehearsed conversations,
the liberating miracle
of not needing to be right anymore.
The body exhaled
before the mind found language.

Then there was movement,
forward, unannounced.
Not forgetting,
not exoneration,
but a willingness to unload.
To leave the wound unguarded,
and let the blood braid itself closed.

Only then do I recognise it,
not defeat, not weakness,
but the courage
to leave the past behind me.

I forgive.

Cover Image: Peter Doig, 1996. “Girl in White with Trees”

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