Broken Symphonies

forgiveness vs letting go

i don't think that i have any tears left to cry

over what happened to me and i'm okay with that

because now i can lift my face to the sky

and as the sun warms my skin my heart beats stronger than ever before

even though i had a part of me die.

when i stepped outside this morning

i saw that dew had gathered on the grass overnight

and when the sun hit it just right,

it looked like diamonds instead of water.

a soft wind blew through hair that had fallen around my face

and i felt something more peaceful than these words could ever draw.

there are no more chains wrapped around my body to drag it down

because i chose to break them.

there's a difference between forgiving somebody and letting go of what they did

but i am the last person who should be teaching about either of them.

It took me about two years to forgive

and i'm still working on letting go

because i know that if i won't really live

until i can let go and move on instead

of thinking about something that i don't ever want to relive.

maybe i haven't fully forgiven yet

or maybe the anger is a part of letting go,

like sleeping through the night instead of

waking up in a cold sweat because i can't stop remembering

because it's too soon to forget what it felt like

to have a hand on my body that was not my own

even after many, many moons.

sometimes i want to give up and just be angry

but i keep telling myself

"there are more people in this world who do good than those who do bad"

even though it's so hard when the bad is often all i seem to see.

i wrote a letter to the person who hurt me

and signed my name at the bottom in stark black ink

to match actions that cannot be erased like the stroke of a pen

you see, i cried writing that letter

because i could finally feel the sun warming my skin again.

i was finally free.

maybe that freedom is forgiveness.

maybe it's letting go.

i have to admit that i might never know.