Collateral Beauty: I Will Not Be Half Of Me

I hate dissecting forgiveness

like it’s a corpse frog

on an eighth grader’s desk.

I don’t want to explain it.

Or debate it.

I just want to feel it.

So let me tell you how I feel it.

Forgiveness is how I remain whole.

Without it,

I begin living in fractions,

letting pieces of myself stay behind.

Without it, I am half of me.

And I don’t quite like being half of me.

Forgiveness has nothing to do

with excusing someone

and everything to do

with preserving myself.

I learned this for the first time

when I extended my beaten palm

to the other woman.

I was sitting on the floor

outside a locker room

at a track meet,

hair damp from the rain.

She stood over me—

yes,

the other woman.

Five pills in my beaten left hand.

A water bottle in my beaten right.

I was hurt.

She didn’t know that.

But she shouted at me,

told me to get up,

told me I didn’t care about my teammates,

spouting unkindness from her mouth like poison.

Even in her raging eyes

she was beautiful.

That is when I realized

her anger wasn’t at me.

She was angry with him.

I was merely the easy target

standing in her way—

a reminder that his arms were

around me not that long ago.

And somehow,

that anger was okay with me.

Something clicked.

And I realized

it wasn’t her choice

to be a rebound.

It wasn’t her fault

that he changed his mind.

Then changed it again.

And again.

It wasn’t her fault.

She was just a girl

who wanted to be loved.

And she deserved that—

to be the only one

someone thought about at night.

And so I sat there

with beaten palms,

hoping the bruises on her heart would fade.

I had grown rather numb about the whole thing

in the days leading up to that moment anyway.

Maybe it was my near-death experience the week before

that made me feel

there was already too much violence in the world.

Maybe I just wanted to break the cycle.

What I do know

is I didn’t care to fight.

I remember looking at her,

wishing I could give her some relief.

So I swallowed my five pills.

Then,

against my coach’s orders,

against my doctor’s orders to stay seated

for thirty minutes after taking my medication,

I quietly stood,

smiled at her,

and stumbled my way into the rain.

Collapsed on the sideline.

Sat in the mud.

And I thought about

all the people

who haven’t gotten to love her yet.

I thought about the time

I witnessed a giggling baby wave at her.

Thought about her dad

hugging her tightly after her events.

She was someone’s baby.

I thought about her heart

and wildly how big it must be

to carry such a strong longing

to be desired.

I thought about him

and wondered

why he couldn’t have just left her alone.

I thought about how my heart felt

and wondered

if hers felt the same pain.

She was human.

And I would not take revenge

on this human.

Because sour lips

and a wicked tongue

have never tasted good to me.

Because I refuse to be half of me.

Because no one harms another

without first hating themselves.

So I sat there—

mud-soaked pants,

aching joints,

a blistering headache,

blurry vision,

and a broken heart—

taking in all this collateral beauty.

We were just two pretty birds

burdened by the other’s presence.

Two pretty birds,

tangled in the mud of his sorrow,

suffering together.

Even if she didn’t know it,

we were bound—

sharing the sisterhood of his mess.

And suddenly,

I didn’t feel so alone.

Most importantly,

I wanted her

to taste forgiveness

from my beaten wings.

She has no idea

that in her anger

she put the first stitch

into my broken heart.

Because of her,

I am now whole.

Let them taste forgiveness

from my beaten palms.

I will not be half of me

for a lifetime.