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Collateral
“I swear he changed”
I believe you.
But neither of us can alter the past.
I’ve become a flower that had wilted into itself:
Shoulders always tense and curled up,
Always afraid, always nervous, always remembering.
It’s hard to bring a withering flower back to life.
“Try giving him another chance, he’s sorry.”
I hope that’s true.
But I’m not obligated to give more chances, no matter how sorry.
At a certain point it stops feeling like giving chances of redemption
At a certain point it feels like giving bullets when he missed the first time.
I’ve worked hard for this anger.
I don’t care if they’ve changed. I don’t care if they’re sorry.
It’s not fair is it?
It’s not fair
that I’m the collateral damage
to their becoming human.
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When I finally snapped from all the people asking to forgive, I put these pieces together and wrote this poem. When “I don’t want to,” and “no,” simply are not enough to deter people from invalidating trauma, I wrote this poem to declare that no matter how they’ve changed, I have no obligation to forgive. I do not have to forgive for being used as a stepping stone to someone
learning to be a human, neither does any other survivor of trauma.