He Begs Forgiveness

He Begs Forgiveness

Someone I tore from my life
like an insect from my skin
left behind a sting

relying on my enduring nature
to bury his bullet-words in the sand
and smooth it over, softly.

He begs the sweet balm of forgiveness
tells me to induce forgetfulness
and wash it all away
but what if I would rather
remember?

Treading the finest line between
friendship and hate
Please, he says, I-
my arms stay clamped to my sides.

Somehow
Someone I tore from my life
a loathed paragraph from a dense chapter
wrote himself back across
my heart
in permanent ink.

He got forgiveness.