I will not forget you.
Would I like to forget you? Or what you did to me?
Perhaps.  But I will not.
Do not.  Cannot.  Have not.

I do not forget you.
Certain places, touches, people
Remind me of you, of us, of that fateful day.
I did not forget you.

I have not forgotten you.
I cannot be near a farm without a memory
Invading my mind and my heart.
I cannot eat or smell a mushroom without flashbacks flooding through my head.
You put them there.

I cannot forget you.
I did not choose promiscuity, abusive relationships, or self-harm.
You chose them for me.
I did not choose to give it all away to some devilish boy cooing in my ear,
"I love you, Sarah."
But that was my new normal.

It is not normal.
And it is not now.

I once had hoped to forget you.
To block out the pain associated with your name.
I did not want anything to do with you.
I did not want to believe you hurt me.
I did not want to deal with the mess you left behind
While you gave into your own selfish impulses.

Now I do not choose to forget you.
I allow myself to feel the hurt when I need to.
I allow myself to mourn the loss of my innocence.
I allow myself to acknowledge that I am not completely "moved on"
And I let you be my motivation to help others.

I do not have to forget you.
I chose a life for myself in order to deal with it
Feminism, activism, writing.
And frankly,
That is quite okay with me.

I missed every sign you may have displayed.
You are beautiful, your smile radiant.
And I thought you were the spitting image of perfection.
I even had a childish crush on you before I found out
You had a serious girlfriend.
I regarded you as royalty.

I honestly thought you had everything.
At that time, I was on top of the world too.
But I never will compare to your light.
On the outside, you had everything.
On the inside, you were dying.
And so was I.

I looked up to you,
You seemed to me a knight, a prince, a warrior.

I never expected that your pain would win the battle.

Poke, *****, stab
It might as well be a knife,
Cutting through your flesh on every fingertip.
Yet you find it on something so beautiful.
The only way you can hold a rose
Is by getting through the thorns.

I think I'll take my chances.

I hear some music
muffled away
in the dark
evening sky.

And I get the feeling
that I want to
love more
than hate.