I have not forgiven my friend
And so the poison swells
Like maggots crawling through my veins
Stealing life
And trading it for
Death.
First one offense
And then the next
Like flames wrapping around tree trunks
Stripping a forest
And pulling it down to
Ash.
Condoning silence with justice
And building my case
Like piles of bones in a graveyard
Pricking the air with a stench
And freezing my senses in
Yesterday.
I am prolific in the art of litany–
Telling the song in repetitive stanzas
Like a clown using his flower
To squirt and squirt small children in the eyes
And leaving them
Blind.
Tall grows the wound
And consumes all my mind
Like a bomb detonating inside my heart
Melting what is soft
And drying as hard as
Stone.
“Forgive,” he said
And I laughed at his joke
Like an amused audience stuffing its face
With an excess of food and wine
And vomiting that which was meant to
Nourish.
“Release,” he whispered
And I wondered at his audacity
Like a rich man counting his money
In the secrecy of a vault
And finding the suggested cost
Exorbitant.
“Lay it down,” he sang
And I grew weary of his prodding
Like a woman being courted
With courage and desire
And in stubborn acceptance I
Trusted.
“Here it is,” I offered
And He lifted it from my arms
Like a father removing splinters
From the hands of his beloved boy
And the war that had frostbitten
So many years
Thawed
Into peace.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2023
Read more by Jill Szoo Wilson on Substack.
Necessary Whispers 