Forgiveness

I forgive you
For hurting me
With your spiteful words

I forgive you
For hurting me
With your disrespect towards my wedding

I forgive you
For hurting me
With your jealousy of Kodi

I forgive you
For hurting me
Because I didn't choose you

I forgive you
For hurting me
Because you were in love with me

I forgive you, Nadaone


I forgive you
For hurting me
With your angry words

I forgive you
For hurting me
With your disdain of Kodi

I forgive you
For hurting me
With your absence from my life

I forgive you
For hurting me
With your bitterness

I forgive you
For hurting me
With the attitude that you've earned the right
To say and do whatever you please

I forgive you
For hurting me
Because I wasn't as special to you as I thought I was

I forgive you, Georgia


I forgive you
For hurting me
By making my fears come true

I forgive you
For hurting me
By disowning me, your only sister

I forgive you
For hurting me
By feeling that you needed to keep your children away from me

I forgive you
For hurting me
By not loving me

I forgive you
For hurting me
Because I'm gay

I forgive both of you, my brothers


I forgive you
For hurting me
For the tears I've cried that you'll never know

I forgive you
For hurting me
With the way you raised me

I forgive you
For hurting me
By forcing your religion down my throat

I forgive you
For hurting me
With the fear that I wasn't worthy to be loved for who I am

I forgive you
For hurting me
By not being the parents I needed you to be

I forgive you, mom and dad


I forgive you
For hurting me
By your disregard of my marital status

I forgive you
For hurting me
With your seductive nature

I forgive you
For hurting me
With your go away, come here behavior

I forgive you
For hurting me
With your lack of professionalism

I forgive you
For hurting me
By marrying someone else

I forgive you
For hurting me
By not being the person I thought you were

I forgive you, Lust Woman


I forgive you
For hurting me
With your lack of honor

I forgive you
For hurting me
By taking what was not yours

I forgive you
For hurting me
By seducing my wife

I forgive you
For hurting me
By fulfilling my threesome fantasy

I forgive you
For hurting me
By never letting it happen again

I forgive you
For hurting me
By allowing my unwanted touch

I forgive you
For hurting me
By not speaking up for yourself

I forgive you
For hurting me
By allowing her to fuck you, while I was asleep in the very same bed

I forgive you
For hurting me
By being awakened and subjected to that

I forgive you
For hurting me
With the knowledge that I wasn't welcome to join in

I forgive you
For hurting me
With your pretense that you cared for me

I forgive you
For hurting me
By acting like I don't exist

I forgive you
For hurting me
With the hatred in your eyes

I forgive you, Wind Dancer


I forgive you
For hurting me
By saying you'd never be tempted to cheat

I forgive you
For hurting me
By saying I was the only one you'd ever want

I forgive you
For hurting me
Because I believed you

I forgive you
For hurting me
By letting another woman seduce you

I forgive you
For hurting me
By saying it's what I would have done

I forgive you
For hurting me
By your total lack of respect for me and my feelings

I forgive you
For hurting me
By fucking her, while I was in the very same bed asleep

I forgive you
For hurting me
By being awakened and subjected to that

I forgive you
For hurting me
By leaving me to go to her

I forgive you
For hurting me
By not making up your mind

I forgive you
For hurting me
By dragging it out for months

I forgive you
For hurting me
By forcing me to make the decision for you

I forgive you
For hurting me
By forcing me to ask you to move out

I forgive you
For hurting me
By giving me back my wedding rings

I forgive you
For hurting me
By lying about still seeing her

I forgive you
For hurting me
By wanting out, wanting more

I forgive you
For hurting me
By wanting your freedom

I forgive you
For hurting me
By not being the person I needed you to be

I forgive you, Wolfmoon


I forgive myself
For hurting me
By not being strong enough to stand up for myself

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By staying in hurtful situations

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By letting myself get hurt

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By not letting go of people who weren't true friends

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By not being a better friend

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By hiding my true self from everyone

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By trying to conform to my parent's ideals

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By trying to kill off part of myself

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By being disappointed in myself
For not being who my parents wanted me to be

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By not being who I am

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By pulling away from the people that I love

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By trying not to hurt them

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By breaking my wedding vows

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By having the affair

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By lying to my spouse about the affair

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By hating myself for who I am

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By not accepting myself for who I am

I forgive myself
For hurting me
By not loving myself for who I am

I forgive you, Corene

4.30.05

CMT

Author's Notes

I woke up this morning and all I could think about was forgiveness. Last night, Kodi and I watched an episode of a Sci-fi TV show where forgiveness was the main theme of the story. Once it was over, we went to bed.

As I lay there in bed, I thought about something Georgia once said after reading the posted poems about my divorce from Wolfmoon, which was that she hadn't read anything about forgiveness in any of those poems. I actually had to go back and re-read them to see if that was true. To my surprise she was right. It's been over a year now since I made that realization. Then my next thought was of a quote that Georgia mentioned once after reading it in a book about emotional healing. The quote is, “Forgiveness is about letting go of trying to make the past better.”

I've had this quote on my desk at work for several years, and I see it everyday. But I don't think I've ever truly done it. Why? Because I'm really not sure I know how. I just always hold on to stuff.

As a child, whenever I'd do something that hurt my mother's feelings, she'd want me to apologize, but she'd also say that it had to be sincere. But more times than not, in her anger she'd demand an apology from me right then. So, I'd say the words, "I'm sorry," only to have them thrown back in my face as not being sincere, that I didn't mean it. She wouldn't let me apologize in my own time, when I was ready, when I meant it. So, I was never sure if I'd ever been forgiven.

When I started to write the poem, I tried to think of everyone that had hurt me in the past few years that I was probably still holding a grudge against. I began with the outer most limits of pain I felt and worked my way to where it's the most painful. I didn't really anticipate having any reaction at all. I'd gotten through a couple of friends and my brothers just fine. As I started to write the section to my parents, I tried to remember all the things that had really hurt me. I began feeling the pain, which had me in tears, and I ended up having to stop writing for a bit because it just hurt too much, it was so intense. Kodi and I talked some, then after a while I calmed down enough to go back to writing again.

The other day, I had a session with my therapist and we talked some about the poem. She thinks it's too soon for forgiveness. I'm still in the battered and bruised stage. Once I work on a few more of my issues, then I might be ready to start thinking about it.

I realized that just because I could say the words didn't mean that I'd actually forgiven anyone. Although this poem may have started out as an attempt at forgiveness, in the end, I believe it turned into an exercise in indentifying the sources of my pain.