The trouble with words is that you never know where and how they’ll land. A few weeks or so I recieved a text. It was out of the blue… Hmm… No, that’s not quite exact, it was unexpected… Not at all out of the blue once I thought it through … It had just taken the sender around 9 or 10 months to convey their feelings about a situation I don’t care too much to mention.
Around 9 or 10 months the sender of this text asked me wtf had happened to take my smile away? Unable to speak, I passed them my phone so they could read the email I’d been sent… They read it twice then turned to me asking if I wanted this motherfucker sorting out. I paused to briefly visualise that scenario… It was kind of tempting to give the nod but actions have consequences and I didn’t want other people dirtied by my mess, so I decided nope… I instructed them – Leave it.
The recent text, full of sweet words, brought back bitter memories. No so much about the months ago incident but a noticing of it being almost like an echo from long ago… A series of flashbacks to 10 years ago, to teen years, to childhood years, to years slotted in between… To times where I’d stood chin held high in defiance, with my nails dug into my own palms, sinking in to the self-inflicted pain that numbed out the abusive tirades of words and blows flung at me… Convincing myself I was impervious to it all… But the thing is, other people see and hear these things and they don’t zone out… They don’t forget…
Me? I’m an absent minded fuck at the best of times. I guess that’s why I never delete things… Sometimes I question if events really happened and it’s strangely soothing to see text even if it’s not good to read… Sometimes people have voiced surprise at my ability to forgive… I think they confuse forgiveness with an ability to over time, find indifference towards events. But when my amnesia is interrupted by other people’s recollections… When bystanders catch the splashes from the rocks being thrown, when the ripples disturb the peace of those I care for… Then that I will neither forgive nor forget.
The pure and blessed way 