This post became wildly different
(and darker) than what it was intended to be. The truth tends to be dark more
often than light, but I hope my final two sentences bring a roundabout declaration.

(TW: I disscus abuse and sexual violence.)

I finally realized why I challenge the notion of forgiveness. Simply being, I can’t be who I am today, the poet, the writer, the advocate, the daughter, the woman…without a vital vindictiveness supporting my cause. If I was to absolve my marks with certain trespasses, my voice would definitely cease to exist. God gave me a voice for a reason, I won’t shut up now.

God’s love is conditional, human love is conditional. Conditions enforce respect on all sides. Folks are afraid to say love is conditional because it goes against the dogma of reparability. Challenging the notion of divine, indefinite absolvent. “Change”, “Growth”, and/or “Improvement” are categorized differently between woman and men. A man’s growth is prioritized by other men, and is expected to be praised by women. A promiscuous man’s past becomes censorable when he decides to “settle down”. While a woman of the same nature is irreparably damaged. Women who experience personal growth cannot be credited without undergoing scrutiny and distrust. This isn’t about putting woman on a higher standard, but to uphold the female savior-complex. Puritans who save themselves for men-to-be, while also, saving said men from themselves. Women are more Christ-like than what is accredited to us.

Forgiveness in itself is an absolute. When you forgive someone, you cannot go back on those feelings, you can no longer ruminate over them without feeling stifled, and most alarming, your self-respect is undermined. Woman and girls who were abused, or sexually assaulted tend to be misplaced under murder. Abuse and rape don’t escalate into wider societies’ first-class reprimand until ends with victims being slain. (Femicide is a topic for another post). The domestic relations with these crimes concur with the statues of limitation. In most cases of sexual violence, the victim knows the predator on some level. How many of you all have been told not to go over certain family member who’s house? Or heard statements such as “she was fast”, “he was just being a boy”, and “its only because I love you”. Unfortunately, many communities still rely on views on which abuse is not absolute like a murder. An abuse situation is something communities’ surmise can be “healed” with forgiveness. In reality, it is meant to be forgotten. Absolving the predator of wrong-doing, while also negating the victim’s feelings and self-regard. Women and girls have to bear the brunt of forgiveness ideology, whenever it is from religious, patriarchal, or residential pressures.

I am forgiveness-critical. I cannot see myself advising a woman or girl to forgive her abuser. Not only because it is not my or anybody’s place, but because the fundamental act of forgiveness I can only see reserved for relationships where the love is mutual, that has a continuation.

Forgiveness is only granted for those who you continue to love and only who continue to love you. Abuse is the abruption of love, and indefinitely, the end.

Written on August 1st, 2024

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