nothing else but my heart's desire [COLLECTION] | FINISHED

On forgiveness - ORIGINAL PROSE

What is forgiveness? Why must I deny my pain, to forgive, to push aside my humanity for the sake of empathy and compassion, as I have never been granted? Why must it be that the hurt must obey and learn to walk past those who harmed, all with a smile as they swallow down their anger, all for the sake of peace from this moment until their last? And what does it mean, when those who harmed cannot accept avoidance and non-answers to their probing in the lives of victims, who endured so much? It seems to make little sense, at least to the outsider, but still I find myself digging deeper, hoping to find answers where surface level responses to simple questions would suffice; they knew, they always knew, even when they didnt, they knew deep down, and even when they could not find out why or how, it still remains there, hidden in their psyche as they rushed to cover the truth with denial and lies. But then, I see how they, too, had been harmed, teased, belittled and made to feel so insignificant in this life, long ago; it stays, lingers as the voice in your head shifts and begins to take form into the very things they always found so repulsive and unlovable about you. And then, the cycle continues, as new life begins and the old ways linger still, as the voice of a long dead generation becomes the inner critic, the disappointed mother and hateful father, of the youth of today. So why forgive? Why not? Why? Why not? I forgive. I dont forgive. I forgive. I'll never forgive. I always have to forgive. I never had a choice. There's too much choice. It all rests on my shoulders, but I never wanted it to be there. I don't want to think about long dead family I'll never know, nor family I've always known. For once, I'd like someone to think of me, only me, my feelings, my wants and needs, my future and everything in-between. What is forgiveness? Forgiveness is an oxymoron, a paradox, a trap I'm forever encased in, and the thing I can never define.