Nine steps down a ten mile road

Is forgiveness a moment

Or a long road that more often than not gets further away the longer you walk it

I have been forgiving you for ten years and forgiving me for twenty five

Because no matter what anyone says

I can’t shake the feeling that I could have done something

And if I did

In some small or mighty way

This would have been different

P

What would it take for me to be proud of you?

To step out of that moment as one of a kind

A reminder that this separation of duty was an unkinding

No, pride the antithesis, maybe the aim is to be bored at brunch with you on Sunday

Leaving behind the tattered threads of bygone days

Joy to the unremarkable

I’m nine steps down a ten mile road

And I can forgive the twelve year old boy I was for hesitating

But I can’t look myself in the eyes for taking twenty five years and still struggling to speak up

The reactions I’ve gotten when I’ve spoken haven’t helped to reinforce

But you can’t blame the fire for your hesitation to go into it

And just because you’re brave enough to do it doesn’t mean you’re strong enough or lucky enough or dumb enough to pull the body out alive

And something died that day

We are older now than our parents were when they did so much and so little, what if their best wasn’t what you needed, and what if decades of imagination empties a chasm between you of what they didn’t do

And what if all of those things they didn’t do amount to less than the one thing I could have

I have watched the slow dissolve of my acceptance breaking through to hold with clenched teeth and burning cheeks

The things I’ve done that I know i did wrong

I have no such grace for what I didn’t do

Maybe it’s a knife I twist to keep me humble

A way to honor my impotence while teasing out with agony

If only I spoke up

If only I’d speak up

If only I speak up

The world would be a better place

No. Don’t laud the lesson when you see how it’s being taught.

The real lesson is a twisting knife reaks havoc on a boring Sunday brunch