Song 66: Forgiving

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
Forgiveness is not the moment
Everyone thinks it is
It's not the embrace on the doorstep
Or the tears or the speech
Or the I forgive you
Which is a sentence
That has been asked to carry
More furniture
Than any sentence in any language
Should be responsible for

Forgiveness is the Tuesday after
When you see their coat
On the hook by the door
And you have a choice
Between the coat being a coat
And the coat being evidence
And you choose coat
And the choosing
Takes everything you have
And nobody sees it
And you do it again on Wednesday

[Pre-Chorus]
And the choosing coat over evidence
Every morning
For a hundred mornings
Is the actual forgiveness
The speech was just the press conference
The coat
Is the policy

[Chorus]
L'amour pardonnant, l'amour pardonnant
The love that chose the coat over the evidence
L'amour pardonnant, l'amour pardonnant
Not a moment — a commute
Driven every day to the same address
Where the betrayal used to live
And now you live
And the betrayal
Has been moved to storage
Not deleted — nothing deletes —
But stored
In a box
On a shelf
You can reach
But don't

[Verse 2]
Bà ngoại forgave my grandfather
For a thing she never named
And the not naming was the forgiveness
Because the naming
Would have built the thing a house
And the thing
Did not deserve a house
It deserved a shelf
In storage
And that is where she put it
With her hands
That were steadier than her voice

Và bà nói với tôi
And she told me
Tha thứ không phải là quên
Forgiveness is not forgetting
Forgiveness is remembering
And choosing the coat
Every morning
With the memory
Still in the room
Not hidden — just outranked

The anterior cingulate
Mediates this exactly —
The conflict between the memory
And the decision
And it burns glucose
Like a furnace
Every single morning
That you choose
Which means forgiveness
Is not free
It costs a breakfast's worth of energy
Every day
And you pay it
Because the alternative
Is more expensive

[Chorus]
L'amour pardonnant, l'amour pardonnant
The love that chose the coat over the evidence
L'amour pardonnant, l'amour pardonnant
Not a moment — a commute
Not a speech — a policy
And the policy
Has a cost
And you pay it
Every morning
In glucose and in grace
And the grace
Is not sainthood
The grace
Is the decision
To let the coat
Be a coat

[Bridge]
I am not a saint
I remember everything
The limbic system
Has an excellent filing system
And the files are not corrupted
They are perfect
Vivid
Available at a moment's notice

But I have built
A longer hallway
Between the file cabinet
And the front door
So that by the time
The memory reaches me
I've already made coffee
And the coffee is warm
And the morning is real
And the memory
Arrives too late
To be the first thing
And the not being the first thing
Is enough
Most days
And most days
Is a victory
I will take

[Outro]
L'amour pardonnant
The coat is a coat