Forgiveness Spell

Speak it aloud. One person per casting. Fill every bracket with a true name and the plain truth. Hands open on the knees. Go slower than feels natural. If tears come, good; keep going.

Companion to Forgiveness Prayer.

I. Finding

Before I say a name, I find where I keep it.

Jaw. Throat. Chest. Belly. Fists. Somewhere in this body a door stayed locked, and I stood guard at it for [how long].

I put my hand there now. I feel the guard. I let the guard feel my hand.

II. Naming

[Name]. [Name]. [Name].

You did this: [the thing, in plain words, as if telling a child].

It happened. I hurt. I had every right to hurt. I say that first, so no one mistakes what comes next for forgetting.

III. The Debt

I have carried an invoice with your name on it. Every time I thought of you, I added interest. I rehearsed the trial. I won the trial every night and woke up owed.

Here is what I thought you owed me: [the apology · the undoing · the understanding · the suffering I wanted you to feel].

And underneath all of it: your sorrow. I wanted you sorry. I waited for sorry like rent.

I know now: you can't pay it. No one can pay it. The debt costs me more to hold than I could ever collect.

So I tear it up. Not because you paid. Not because what you did became right. I resign as your creditor. I close the account.

IV. Seeing

Before you did this, someone did something to you. And before them, someone to them. I see the chain of hands. I see your hands as a child's hands. I see the fear you carried into the room where you hurt me. I don't know what you carried. I don't need to.

I don't excuse you. I see you. I can do the second without the first.

V. Release

[Name], I release you. I release you from my courtroom. I release you from my nightly rehearsal. I release you from sorry. I release you from the job of making this right — you never would have done it, and I never would have let you.

You don't have to know I did this. You don't have to agree. Alive or dead, near or far, this happens on my side of the wall.

I set you down. (Open the hands.) I set you down. (Breathe out, all the way, past the bottom.) I set you down.

You can go. Or stay. It no longer matters.

VI. The Guard

And to the part of me that held the door: thank you. You kept watch so I wouldn't get hurt again. You did your job. Stand down. Come in from the cold. Sit by the fire.

VII. Asking

Now I turn around.

To those I have hurt — the ones whose names I know: [names], and the ones I'll never know —

I did it. I take my hands off the excuses. Forgive me or don't. I ask anyway. The asking opens my own door.

VIII. The Mirror

And now the one I find hardest to forgive. Me.

For [what I did]. For [what I didn't do]. For [who I became to survive it].

I did my best with what I had. I know that, because if I'd had better, I'd have used it.

I forgive the child who couldn't stop it. I forgive the young one who didn't know yet. I forgive the one who ran. I forgive the one who stayed too long. I forgive the one who stood guard at that door for [how long] when they could have gone outside.

I set myself down. I set myself down. I set myself down.

IX. Life

And to life itself — for the body I got, the parents I got, the time I got, the losses I got, for everything that happened that nobody chose —

I forgive you for not matching the order I placed. I forgive you for sending this instead. I unclench from the life I didn't get. I open my hands to the one I did.

X. The Seal

This does not close once. It closes every time I say it.

When the invoice reappears — and it will — I won't say I thought I finished with this. I'll say:

I release you. I set you down. I breathe out. I close the account.

Underneath every hand I've named — the one that hurt me, the one I hurt, my own — the same ground. I stand on it. I let it hold all of us.

So it stands. So it stands. So it stands.

(Breathe out. Leave the hands open.)