back in 2019, i wrote a piece
it’s called “forgivable”
this was 3 months into knowing you
and i guess since then,
everything became just that –
forgivable
i was telling the whole world,
well, at least those
who come across this secret page,
how when you accidentally
brush off my skin with yours,
it reverses the discomfort,
warms me like the ideal summer
fast forward to six months later,
there was a voice in my head
telling me to run, run far
but it was muffled, silenced, unheard
suddenly my five items list
of forgivable things
grew longer than acceptable,
and i was left wondering –
if the ocean can swallow me next
after it’s done with the sun?
and if it can,
can i be left to cease instead?
surviving is too dramatic,
and i’m not cut for the theater
i felt like a child
naive and stubborn to how harsh,
how complicated this part
can make a girl’s life –
when she’s new to the game,
a game unheard of until she realizes
she’s apaprently an involuntary player,
playing, nonetheless
sometimes i ask myself-
isn’t it cruel?
weren’t you?
when you blurted out promises
you know you couldn’t keep,
were you acting the fool,
or were you making me one?
when i wrote “forgivable”
i said in the end,
“i take note of the smallest
details as if i don’t want
to forget
not now
not ever
not any of this”
silly girl,
silly me
and now with my long list
of forgivable things
i guess i regret
not wanting to forget
and now the memories
have became a curse,
daggers to my heart
that you’ve broken
many times than i can count,
in many ways imaginable
i’m on the mending stage,
but sometimes i wonder,
how would it be like –
if we skipped the ugly parts?
if we didn’t have to go through the mind games?
if we chose to be adults from day 1?
would i be here writing happy songs
instead of crying in between tasks,
on a thursday as work piles on,
as colleagues catch me for deadlines,
as i reply in ms teams while i wipe tears
that came out of nowhere
due to flashbacks unwanted
that attack me in random?
i guess the hardest part of this stage
is how i have to keep it as a secret,
so sacred, embarassing, and heavy
because no one would understand
what it’s like to make mistakes
when everyone has assumed you as the captain,
when no one expects you to be broken,
because if you are,
then there will be no hope for the rest
who probably thinks they have it worse.
call it vain,
but i guess you’ll never understand
when you’ve never tried to know me
so i cry in secret
when the flashbacks attack,
suppress the sobs and
tell myself “you are happy now
(because you are)
and believe it,
believe it,
until it’s all real,
until the unasked apologies
become forgivable”
i’m telling you –
surviving is too dramatic
and no matter how negative
this sounds-
i hope the ocean will swallow us all next
and leave it at that
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