I Will Never Forget So I Will Never Forgive

I Will Never Forget So I Will Never Forgive

I built a cathedral out of us,

stone by stone, bone by bone.

Every promise was a prayer,

every kiss an altar flame.

You swore before heaven and the watching stars

that this was forever.

And I believed you —

like a fool believes in mercy,

like the dying believe in light.

Fourteen years.

Fourteen winters of holding on,

fourteen summers of almost peace.

And then the silence —

sharp, surgical, absolute.

You left,

and everything holy in me fell to ash.

Now they tell me to remember the good,

to let the sweetness outweigh the rot,

to call it “growth” or “lesson” or “love that changed me.”

But how can I remember without bleeding?

How can I smile at ghosts that haunt the wreckage of my chest?

You were there when I was dying —

when my body betrayed me,

when I trembled in sterile rooms.

You were there,

and so you robbed me.

You robbed me of ever finding that again —

that depth born in pain,

that bond forged in suffering.

You robbed me of the sacred —

and traded it for lies, for bodies, for escape.

Now the memories taste like rust.

Now the vows sound like static.

Now the word love makes me flinch.

For it’s as meaningful now

as a line of cocaine on the club floor,

as meaningful as shredded paper,

as make-believe —

no value, no substance, no future.

A covenant turned to dust,

a prayer turned to noise,

a heart turned to ruin.

They tell me to forgive,

to bury the dead kindly.

But forgiveness is a language I no longer speak.

I buried you already —

unmarked, unnamed,

in the quiet place where all lies go.

So no, I will not forgive.

Because to forgive would mean forgetting.

And I will never forget —

so I will never forgive.