A letter to the Cruel Ones

Dear cruel ones,

I hope the mirrors remember you
more gently than people do.

I hope, one evening,
when you wash your hands,
the water asks
what you were trying to remove.

I have no curse for you.

Only this strange wish:

may you someday sit
in a quiet room
and hear every word
you once used as a weapon
return as birds.

May they circle your ceiling
without landing.

May you understand
why some people became silent
after knowing you.

Why some doors
learned to close themselves.

Why a heart can forgive
and still never
come home.

You thought cruelty
was a small thing,
a sentence,
a laugh at the wrong moment,
a hand turning cold
when someone needed warmth.

But I have seen
small things become oceans.

I have seen one careless word
grow roots inside a person
and bloom years later
in the middle of their sleep.

So this is not a letter
asking you to apologize.

It is only a letter
to tell you:

we survived
the weather of your hands.

Some of us still carry rain
where our hearts should be.

Some of us still flinch
when kindness knocks.

But we are learning
to open the door.

And perhaps that
is the cruelest thing
we could ever do to you,

to become soft again
without becoming yours.