Forgiveness

 Forgiveness

The mirror catches a fractured light,
A jagged edge where silence grew,
And I am tasked to dim the sight
Of all the ways they broke what’s true.

To forgive is not a holy grace,
Nor sunlight breaking through the rain;
It is a veil across the face
To hide the architecture of the pain.

I curate a fiction, smooth and kind,
To bridge the hollow they have made:
"They did not know," I tell my mind,
"They held a dull and clumsy blade."

A gentle lie, a necessary theft,
To rob the truth of all its sting,
So I might salvage what is left
From all the ruins that they bring.

It is the art of moving on,
Of painting over cracks with white,
Ignoring that the damage dawned
From hands that knew the dark from light.

I tell the lie to set me free,
To trade the ache for quiet ground;
A mercy I bestow on me,
While truth still waits, without a sound.