on forgiveness.

I wish I could be the bigger person
and give you the benefit of the doubt,
and full-heartedly believe that your intentions are pure.
I wish I could put my pride and pain aside,
and sweep our history under the rug
and pretend like it never happened
so that we might be friends again, and not strangers.
I wish I wasn’t straightjacketed by hesitance and fear
so that I could just accept your invitation
and go out for a drink with you,
catch up and make nice over cocktails.
Believe me, for the past year and a half, I truly wanted nothing more
than to rebuild our burnt bridges and mend fences with you—
I’ve been walking around with an olive branch in my back pocket
on the off chance that we might meet one another in passing.
Despite all of this, and despite my yearning to just suck it up and bury the hatchet,
I can’t help but feel that you still don’t respect me.
You didn’t show any regard for me when you
knowingly took me and my heart for granted two winters ago,
and now your sudden presence and persistence
after such an extended absence is cause for alarm.
I’m not trying to punish you, and I’m not trying to nit-pick and dwell.
I'm not trying to hold a grudge, but I can't just pretend
that everything is okay when it isn't.
It’s difficult to forgive and forget when an apology was never offered.
Call me selfish,
call me petty,
call me stubborn,
but please realize that, for a long while, I wasn’t living my life on my own terms
as I was thinking of you first, instead of myself.
I realize it’s also possible that I’m just fucking crazy.
I'm not trying to force you to own up to anything you feel you're not guilty of,
but please know that you fucked me up in a way no one else has,
and that I’m more than willing to happily help you wash the blood off your hands
if you’d just ask me to.