Before I Knew Better

I forgive myself for the maps I did not have, for the names I could not yet speak, for the doors I walked past because I did not know they were mine to open. I forgive myself for mistaking endurance for wisdom, for believing survival was the same as choosing well. I did not fail to see sooner. I was still being taught how sight is earned. Some lessons arrive only after the cost has been paid, after the body learns what the mind could not hold. Time was not withholding mercy. It was building it. So I loosen my grip on hindsight. I set down the weapon of if only. I let the past be what it was a classroom, not a courtroom. What I know now was never meant for then. It belongs to this moment, to this breath, to the hands I am learning to place on myself without punishment. Forgiveness is not forgetting. It is understanding the conditions under which I survived and choosing not to indict myself for being human before I was ready to be whole. Music Escape by Sappheiros BreakingCopyright on YouTube