And Yet, I Forgave
There once was a woman.
I, in all my searching,
and all my dreaming,
had never seen nor imagined such a one.
In her, for a while, I found my muse,
in her I thought I'd found my future.
And for what seemed like the best time of my life,
what seemed our own place in heaven,
it all really was;
but, alas, perfection's shine too wears off sometimes,
and eventually we did part –
eventually we did fall.
I tried so hard, for so long, to forgive –
but a broken heart does not so easily the hatchet bury.
I wept, and I cursed, and I threatened the night sky itself;
this grudge, I thought, for pain so freely given,
unending –
this anger boundless.
All I could see was the problems with letting it go –
the frustration with what had been done,
the sadness with no release other than pain
and being turned into this anger.
My only thoughts were on how much I hated her
for what she had caused me to become, to feel.
Forgiveness looked, to me, weak,
appeared akin to giving in to the anguish,
letting it rule over my life;
if I couldn't be mad at her for bringing me so much pain,
then what recourse would be left me?
What worse pitfalls, worse level of hell might I sink into?
And yet, I forgave.
Just that short while ago,
and yet it does seem so very far away,
I relinquished the pain, the sadness, the fury and fear –
got rid of that anger, the beast's brand.
Revenge was not what I needed,
only time; time to see things in that crucially different way.
Her face I remember,
her love I'll never forget;
but now, the memories bring triumph instead of tears.
Triumph, that I could find such a beauty in this world,
and be able to watch and join her dance.
That I could make such an angel happy, no matter how long.
Hope, that I could do so again;
triumph, that I glimpsed the light of the heavens
and came away, not unscathed, certainly not unchanged,
but in the end happy –
better for the experience, with a love that may have died
in the traditional sense, but lives on in remembrance.
Forgiveness may not always be the road to take,
but in this, this time, I found my salvation;
put the wrongs behind,
and sometimes that's where they'll stay.
It's a difficult thing to just get up and do, and might take time –
but such is a challenge of moving on.
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