forgiveness
Hide nothing; divulge everything.
Arrested truth is not a thing we like to see.
I’d much rather see the false than deal with reality.
At the end of things, wouldn’t we all?
Not enough confrontation, not enough tears.
Advocates swing their briefcases up onto conference room tables.
The locks click open, the papers begin a rustling dance
That will last for three months.
Half a key-lime pie sits uneaten
In the refrigerator. Half the linens in the closet are missing.
Half a bucket of fried chicken lies in gnawed-on bones in the trashcan.
The windows are open halfway.
The tiles are cracked on the bathroom walls.
The large mirror is cracked in the top right corner.
The candle is cracked from the impact.
The last thing cracked left its bloody residue.
The scars, that’s what can not be forgotten.
Sure, the house has scars. Half-decent repairmen can erase those.
The one on my chest. The one on my right hand.
The ones on my back.
The passage of time has a profound
Effect on the body. They are smooth remnants of what happened before
A little jagged. From fingernails. From a hot iron.
From an angry lashing thick black leather belt.
Rolling away now, done with this in this time and in this place.
What comes now, in this stanza, is my earned moment.
I am told I can say whatever I want, whatever I feel will help me escape my emotions.
But I have nothing. Just cynical apathy towards a past not quite forgotten.