And still, I find myself

Written by Haley Sielinski

Wanting to write a bitter missive
about all the ways I am expected to thank you
for all the heaviness you’ve given me.
The strong blades I whet so thinly.
The hands of grace I’ve finally calloused
on cement curbs and crackling telephone wires
sparking like synapses in August heat.
But sometimes,

I still want what has passed to be known.
After the long mending,
the slow layering of skin,
I still find myself
the pilot light flickering
at the base of my throat
yearning for the fuel to return
like a lover and explode.
So that what I’ve left tethered may curl to ash.
To burn up all your hope.

I see now that forgiveness is an oath.
One I make again to spare both you and me.
So, in the quiet hour I forsake the burning.
I cut flowers that did not bloom from blood.
I arrange them for you, prettily.
So you may find them in the morning
and be delighted
in the same kitchen where I crept through the dark,
thieving half a sleeve of soda crackers,
too hungry to fall asleep.

No longer am I small for you.
I let go like a sigh.
Like the sky, I go and I go and I go
far beyond what you see.
I brush the final crumbs of my bitterness from my fingers,
from the corners of my mouth.
Softening and sinking in the water of the vase
so that they may feed what is already dying.
Even as it’s over,
fading not like a bloom but like a bruise,
still I find myself.

There’s a lot out there about being in the middle of abuse. 6 Signs You Have PTSD, What to Do When a Boundary Is Crossed and Then Crossed Again, How to Know When It’s Time to Go No-Contact, but what about after? In the after, I am disoriented. Part of me wants my victimhood to forever be martyred in a clean break. If you do that to me, I won’t let you do it again, like it’s easy. But most of me wanted to forgive, not for their sake but for mine. And as time went on, I let them in again little by little until I’d gone further than I ever expected and found that I am not done forgiving. Maybe forgiveness is like a garden or a secret. Something that is kept over time as you commit again and again to it. Maybe I’ll find that forgiveness isn’t actually for me, or maybe this is just another wound that needs more time to heal. Most likely, this pain is a needle. One that I will know is too feeble to draw my thick skin together only after it has already snapped.

HALEY SIELINSKI is a writer currently based outside of Seattle. She received her BA in drama from the University of Washington, and her work has previously been published in Plainsongs and Belletrist Magazine. Poetry is a way for her to stay in love with the world and its people, to remember, even in the trying times,
to look closely and feel deeply. @phull_throttle