Confession Without Absolution

Fifty years of silence, a sister’s suffering; the unspoken truths we carry

Cindy Heath

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2 min read

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Apr 16, 2025

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Bless me, Sister, for I have sinned.  
It has been fifty years or five minutes or I was never here.  
This is my mortal sin: I was a coward. I did not save you.  

                    I was        a window        a stone    I was pain.  

For this and all the sins of my past life, I am sorry.


I had been using the outside       
  
                                  invisible

The trees stood green suits                            watching. 

                  
                    Rain balanced on                                  edges
waiting for gravity to                 remember.


It was August. Or Tuesday. Or sixteen years since I turned thirteen.

Or I was never 
                there.


Mother’s voice rang out, a sound splitting atmosphere molecules atoms ants 

                  Sonic boom

I smothered under damp moss wool, but voice sliced through

Don’t MOVE.  
   Don’t get up.   Say it.  

      Say out loud.  I’m a—"


Copper wire hair.         Mouth red vowels.
The wind pushed through her she did not move.

I struggled to breathe, see underwater, fish, snake, loon.

Sister is in the water.
     Or she is water.
         Or she is mud waiting to remember how to be girl.

The trees hum  and hum   and hum  and hum and hum  and hum
Monster crouches.

"Say it,"…