Forgave already

Loved you for the whispers carried 
on the back of a dishonest wind, 
the things they painted with careless strokes, 
false accusations blooming like weeds 
in a carefully tended garden. 
 
I saw the glint in the shadows, 
the cunning dance of shared secrets, 
the cahoots woven tight 
like ropes around my simple trust. 
You built a scaffold of deceit, 
and expected me to climb it willingly. 
 
Stonewalling, that cold, hard refusal 
to meet my eyes, to acknowledge 
the crumbling foundation beneath our shared sky. 
Poor me, you thought, the gullible one, 
the easy mark for your elaborate play. 
No! That story ends here, unfinished. 
 
This tapestry you wove, this narrative spun 
from lies and half-truths, 
is manipulated, thread by deliberate thread. 
It is a costume you dressed me in, 
a role I never auditioned for. 
 
I am the same as when I entered this world, 
unblemished by your calculated malice, 
a clean slate refusing to accept 
the ink of your mistakes. 
My core remains untouched, 
a quiet, unyielding stone. 
 
Now, a different trajectory is set, 
premeditated only in the sense 
that survival demands a new direction. 
I walk toward an end you didn't plan, 
a destination outside your map of control. 
 
I am rich in the mind, a treasury 
of thoughts you couldn't touch, 
a wealth measured in understanding, 
not in the trinkets you value. 
My inheritance is clarity, 
a far greater bounty. 
 
Am I a joke to you? A punchline 
delivered in hushed, self-satisfied tones? 
Perhaps in the echo chamber of your making. 
Or are you beyond the need for pretense now? 
Do you already speak the raw truth of your opinions, 
the blunt assessments you keep hidden? 
 
If so, let the words fall, 
unfiltered by the need to charm or deceive. 
Let the air clear, even if the sound 
is the clatter of broken pieces. 
I stand here, whole within the wreckage, 
watching the dust settle on your illusions, 
and finding my own steady ground. 
This is not surrender; it is simply seeing.

jazz soul blues trap