They ask me,

almost every time
the story comes up -

"So…
have you

forgiven?"

And I Always wonder
why that is the question.

Not-
How did you survive?

Not-
Did you ever sleep again?

Not-
Did your laughter
ever come back
the way it used to?

No.

They ask
whether I have
forgiven.

As though
the ending of every
tragedy
must also redeem
its villain.

Why?

Why is forgiveness
treated
like the final exam
of suffering?

Why must a person
who was broken
also become
the person
who absolves?

I don't understand.

Maybe because
I have never thought
of forgiveness
the way everyone else
seems to.

To me,

forgiveness
has Always belonged
to accidents.

To the cup
that slipped
from your hands.

To words
spoken too quickly.

To someone
who forgot.

To someone
who failed.

To someone
whose love
arrived late,
or clumsily,
or not enough.

Forgiveness
belongs
where regret
already lives.

It belongs
where someone
would undo
what they have done.

It only
time
would loosen its grip
for a single second.

That-

I understand.

But tell me...

what is forgiveness
supposed to do
with intention?

What name
do we give
to the person

who had time?

Who paused.

Who considerd.

Who knew
what this whould do
to another human being.

Who watched
the consequences
forming
right there
in front of them-

and continued.

Not because
they had to.

Because they chose to.

Tell me-

where,
inside forgiveness,

do we place
choice?

Because that is
the part
I cannot cross.

I cannot confuse
cruelty
with carelessness.
I cannot pretend
that calculation
is the same thing
as a mistake.

A mistake
looks back.

A mistake
aches.

A mistake
would trade places
with the person
it harmed.

But intention….

intention
sleeps peacefully.

Intention
learns
how to justify itself.

Intention
rewrites history
until the knife
becomes
your imagination.

And maybe

this is the lie
we have told each other
for generations-

that forgiveness
is always
the higher road.

I don't think it is.

Sometimes
the higher road

is refusing
to lie.

Refusing
to call
a wound
an accident

simply because
the truth
makes everyone
uncomfortable.

No.

I do not forgive you.

Not because
I am bitter.

Not because
I carry you.

Not because
I wake up
thinking of what you did.

I don't.

Life,
mercifully,
has grown
far larger than you.

I simply refuse
to perform
a kindness

you never earned.

Because forgiveness
was never invented
for people
who knew exactly
what they were doing.

It was invented
for those
who didn't.

farazarifansari