Forgive

I can only catch glimpses of my childhood

fluttering by,

moths to the electric resonance

of light.

The few I trapped

on the latticework of memories

remained covered with layers

upon layers of

Guilt.

Shame.

Fear.

Hate.

That I learned to ignore

in hopes of forgetting,

losing them to the flood of

electric waves inside my brain.

When nothing worked

and the dust only piled up

until I was nothing more

than the attic of an abandoned house.

I figured the sepia scope

of nostalgia,

remembrance,

exposure, would help in letting go.

I revisited these childhood monsters,

returning to the house with lights always flickering

to learn so I could

unlearn.

And I forgave myself.

Shocked by the crumbled walls I had built

tumbling down by my hands,

the ghosts of charred night butterflies

escaped the cobweb I had laced.

And we were free.