philos
liberté
princeps
memoria

Forgiveness
Rebecca Brown

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In the morning we had coffee.


You chatted to me about your adventures.
You cocked your head at just the right places, the way I remembered you did. You told me you'd worked hard in the time you'd been away.
You told me you had grown.
You told me how much you had learned about the world, about yourself, about honour, faith trust, etc.



You looked deep into my eyes and said, I've changed.
You said how good and strong and true and truly different you were.
How you had learned that it is not our acts, but our intents, that make us who we are.



I watched your perfect teeth.



. . . My mouth was closed. I couldn't tell you anything.


I couldn't tell you that you can't re-do a thing that's been undone.

I couldn't tell you anything that you would understand.
I couldn't tell you that it wasn't just the fact that you had ripped it out of me and taken it, then left with it then lost it,

how it wasn't only that, but it was more.

How it was that when you asked me, I believed you and I told you yes.


How, though I had tried a long time to replace what you had hacked away from me,
I never could undo the action of your doing so,

that I had, and only ever would have, more belief in your faulty memory,
your stupid sloppy foresight, than in your claims of change.


How I believe, yes, I believed with all my heart,
that given time, you'd do something else again,
some new and novel variant to what you'd done to me,


again.



And then I thought, but this was only half a thought,
that even if you have changed, no really changed, truly and at last,


and even if you knew me better than I know myself,
and even if I'm better off than I've ever been,
and even if this was the only way we could have gotten to this special place where we are now,
and even if there's a reason, darling, something bigger than both of us,

and even if all these even if's are true,


That I would never believe you again, never forget what I know of you, never forget what you've done to me,
what you will do,
I'll never believe the myth of forgiveness between us.




- - - - - - - - - - - -


Brown writes good torment.

The language is unpretentious, lengthy, extremely wordy, almost straggling along with its tedious train of thoughts..

I almost didn't bother reading this at all. Then it struck me. You can hear the desperation in the even ifs, the bare torment, barely.
The rambling voices in their minds. The very voices who tell them to forgive, knowing very well their limitations...





Good morning sunshine.