por Marcella Marx

My redemption was intimately connected to yours
To your admitting of Thy mistakes
I didn’t go as far as to imagine your cold wrinkled face asking for forgiveness
A word, look, deed
Would have sufficed
But silly me,
I hope for too much
My expectations were in sync with what I thought you were
Only, you are not
You don’t exist in me
You are a distant exiled land
Where I thought I could migrate to
one day
You are my biased childhood memory
Stained by my hands covered in red ink
I don’t even know if you were ever there
Here, in me
I probably invented you
Do you ever wonder if you have lived up to your imaginary self?
I allow my hands to heal from your wounds
So that you can be buried
At your gravestone, one will read:
Here lies he, whose name cannot be pronounced
He who has failed
Rest your selfish self far off from all of us
And guide my steps away from your shadow.