Theme Fridays: apologies

WRITERS’ CORNER

THEME FRIDAYS

 

Welcome to Week 3 of Writers’ Corner.  This week, our theme is apologies, courtesy of J over at Not A Housewife.  This was a tricky one for me, for though i am quite apologetic, i didn’t know how to approach this creatively.  Thinking about it, if more of us were able to apologize without seeing it as a cave-in, as weakness, as losing, God! what a better world we’d be living in!  Imagine, no matter who you were, being able to say, “I was wrong and I’m sorry.” and heal what could’ve escalated to hateful words, life-long grugdes, fisticuffs, prejudice, inner turmoil, war, bitterness…

i also thought about what life’d be like if i personally was able to accept apologies.  It’s not to make others suffer with guilt but just being unable to acknowledge i am hurt to the person who hurt me because i don’t want them to feel like they have to apologize.  Does that make sense?

All that ramble aside, let’s get to it.  
Here’s J’s thoughts on apologies.
And be sure to check out Annie’s perspective. 
i guarantee you will not be sorry…

apologies

I owe her an apology. Looking at her is unbearable. Her eyes have low self esteem and her neck slumps under my command and observations, pronouncements. It’s strange. I feel badly about what I’ve done.  She doesn’t. She thinks I am right to blame her for everything and takes it. My words, they pierce the skin, sink down deep into the marrow. I’ve written her life on her bones. Her back is a weave of scar tissue.  She thinks she deserves it.  This infuriates me.  Makes me think that perhaps she does.

I owe her an apology.

To her feet I say:

I never meant to hurt you. I mean I did, but I didn’t know I’d hurt you so much. I didn’t know I’d destroyed you so completely.

I regret never allowing you your mistakes. I never allowed you to grow from them. I wrapped them tight about you like a stained shroud. They are what I’ve used to define you.

I say:

I’m sorry i never defended you.  I could not, did not, protect you- your body, your spirit, your mind- I felt so ashamed of you I thought you deserved the bad things that happened to you.

I let you take the blame. I hid while people handled you carelessly. I watched as your body was passed around like some meaningless collection of holes. I liked feeling important. I was selfish and for that, I am very sorry.

I’m sorry for saying you are ugly, mean and fat. I’m sorry for calling you a moron, a jerk, bitch, whore, stupid, pointless, a loser, idiot, a monster.  For saying that you are too ugly to live…

I close my eyes and say:

I am most sorry.

About trying to kill you- with liquor, with cigarettes, prayers, drugs and that box cutter…

For hating you so utterly; and I do.  Hate you. I hate the way you look. I hate your willingness to shrink, to hide. I hate your ability to blend into walls and keeping me stuck there with you. I detest your worthlessness, the way you wear it like a badge. I hate that when I look at you I see me.

But I’m sorry for all of it. i know you’ll forgive me because that’s what you do- forgive.  Everyone but yourself, you forgive.

At last, there are her eyes. They are sad pockets. She does forgive me, but it’s plain that this conversation will be had many more times.  Just as her ability to take it makes me hate her, my anger and emotional violence creates in her an acceptance for me.  We are made for each other.

I stick a finger in one of those eyes to break up the humiliation of it all.

It hurts me. 

I scratch the surface.

My eyes weep, there, in the mirror.

(Copyright 2008 )  c A Hughes
07.07.08