By Gabriela Leon
My mother apologizes like a politician:
With tight-lipped words
And murmured platitudes.
She asks that I forgive her
For what she says she's done to me;
It is the ultimate burden of proof.
Because the scars that hurt the least to earn,
The ones for the world to see,
Have all now faded.
Yet the ones that lasted longer still bleed
And those are always hidden
To everyone except for me.
They manifest in the itchiness of my fingers,
In the cold sweat that sprouts around strangers,
In the shame of spaghetti straps on my skin.
The scars that mattered
Still matter
Will always matter
Spill from my lips at midnight
As I ask God for a forgiveness I've long given.
My mother's apologies are hollow
Like the words of a swindler with a catch And
after all is said and done,
And the grief and the trauma's come to pass,
The only peace I found was in the silence.
In her absence.
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