swell I forgive myself for being myself, oh ye of little faith in I--for the eyes, the green ones I did not inherit, no matter how I wished for them. Forgive brain folds light and dark, their inexplicable pattern of restless city. My teeth for being slightly terrible and the sugar for ruining them. Forgive childhood’s neglect, sodas for breakfast. This mouth now paying for it. The dentist who whispers I’m sorry when he sees my tears slip sideways silent. I am cranked all the way back. Forgive. For mouthing hymns instead of singing them. Forgive the mirrors because it was never their fault. Nor winter’s fault. Nor the one who had you first or the one that has you now. Forgive our wants for their different paths, for this habit of wandering off into thick green. Be it curious or compulsive or inherited need to leave--I forgive my mother’s empty seat, a storm receding. For damning myself as a means to punish someone else. How unremarkable to suffer at one’s own hand. Forgive every doc...