Forgiveness

Sometimes I want to forgive you, to take you back. There are times when I just want to forget everything that has ever passed between us, and just live with the here and now. I don't want to believe that you ever hurt me, that you ever could, or that you ever would. I don't want to believe in betrayal. I just want you here with me, like it used to be. I miss how it used to be.

We would stay up late into the night, sitting on my bed with hot cups of tea, as we'd confess our secrets to one another, laugh about a movie, a television show, or just something that happened to us that day. No matter what was going on outside, or how we would have to act around each other in the waking world, it didn't matter. There was just you and me, and everything was perfect. It didn't matter what the rest of the world would think if they saw us. It was perfection. Life was perfection.

I remember what it was like when I'd wake up in the morning next to you. I would lie there and watch you forever, if I could. I remember how your soft hair would lay delicately messy along your cheek, and how your face would be so peaceful, barely moving with your dreams. You were so innocent then. We both were, really. We'd have our nights together, and I would have my mornings to watch you, before having to softly wake you up so you could get ready for class.

Everything was perfect then, and I miss it. I wish I could forgive you. Forgive what you did to me; forgive how much you hurt me. If I could, and if it was safe, I'd forget everything that happened after that. I can't though. No matter how much I wish I could forgive and forget, I can't. If I forgave you, it would be an invitation to bring me down again. It would be too obvious, too simple. Besides, I'm better off now, aren't I? I don't spend my nights talking with you, my mornings watching you, and my afternoons aren't spent working on things for you.

I'm not your slave anymore. I'm not dragged behind you, tending to your every wish and whim. I'm not your puppet anymore. You have no control over me now, and yet, somehow you do. The time I used to spend with you, I now spend thinking about you. I spend it remembering what you did to me, remembering the good and the bad. I remember the day you left me. I wonder if you do too. I remember when I said those words, those three that are so difficult to say. I remember when you laughed. I remember that you didn't believe it at all. I remember that you didn't feel the same. I remember that you left.

Yet I'm still sitting here, on the same bed in which we spent so many nights together, wishing that I hadn't said those words. Wishing I could forgive how you reacted. Thinking that I might, just might, be able to forget how much it hurt. But forgiveness is for the week, and forgiveness would mean taking you back, and allowing you to hurt me again. No matter how much I loved you, or how I feel now, I can't forgive you. I can't forgive you for leading me on, for entrancing me, for making me love you. Most of all, I can't forgive you for breaking my heart.