Holy Wild by Gwen Benaway

Author:Gwen Benaway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookThug
Published: 2018-09-23T19:55:55+00:00

Forgiveness

1.

forgiveness is a road you walk alone

toward yourself.

at the beginning and end of the road

is the shadow of your childhood,

asleep in the fallen trees, waiting for you

to return to everything you’ve lost.

2.

this is the last poem I will write

about you.

I have carried you through nights

like the robin I found as a kid,

its wings broken, held from flight—

all it could be was longing for sky.

once you said you wanted lovers

to let you be yourself,

without the rules of masculinity,

to greet you like a storm

meets the city in summer,

dry heat becoming moisture,

lightning between condo towers,

momentary sound and light

breaking new ground

inside our bones.

the truth is you are the only one

who asks more from love

than what you are.

embrace yourself.

3.

we let go in April because spring

means counting what remains.

I name you and what’s gone in the hours

of sunlight returning.

this winter we built a second house

in the ruins of the first,

but I can’t make you value a softness

you don’t want.

still we must remember to leave an offering

for all the ghosts we made.

I am not afraid if we’re already gone,

you are in me now.

our nested hearts where a chorus

of night insects swells,

your hand in mine repeats nightly,

may we always have enough

mercy for every wounded animal,

find water in every dry forest.

this what you should have learned

from my lips, explorer.

how to forgive what runs at dusk,

how to hold the threads of dawn,

to be gentle when mercy

abandons us.

4.

I have spent spring letting you go

but you return like the full moon

above the pines, distant but still

close enough to cast shadows.

I read one of your poems once—

in it, a woman says you’re haunted.

her words repeated in your voice

felt like a matchstick burning down.

one of your friends tells me

it’s only as bad as it feels

which means it’s worse

than anyone knows.

I read a story about a woman

with a lover who rapes her

then sends an email

saying he needs space.

I cry at my desk,

embarrassed, asking—

why does this story

make me think of you?

5.

no, you get nothing more

from me than the sound

of rain through the window—

the season returns to wash

away everything we were.

forgiveness isn’t knowing

why you hurt me—

it’s walking home

with damp shoes,

believing the truth

lives somewhere

underground.

it reaches out,

pushes up to light

through sidewalks

and paved driveways.

when it comes,

you will be gone

but I will be here,

in a place I carry

in me like a promise.

you never held me

as if I was this truth

or this forgiveness,

but I am, I will be,

I’m already more

than you can be.

for that, only that

I forgive you

for everything.

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