I don't forgive. I just archive. When the system fails, I become the trial. He took her case and buried it for forty winters. The uncle paid to keep the shame behind the splinters. I read the ledgers, the lies, the names they fed. He called it a closed file. I called it a debt. Men who hate women. Men who hate women. The law is a bandage over a wound that still spreads. Men who hate women— that's not a sickness. That's a trade. Men who hate women— and when I answer, they call me deranged. I am not their victim. I am not their saint. I am the girl who learned to turn their own blade. The guardian who raped me kept a Polaroid collection. I kept the key to his apartment. I kept the recollection. He signed his own confession with a needle in his thigh. I don't need forgiveness. I need the system to comply. I do not close the file. I do not close the door. I do not close the wound. I do not close the score. Men who hate women— you keep your pulpits and your penitent stains. Men who hate women— I keep the evidence. I keep the chains. I am the girl with the dragon tattoo. I came to read the dark until it breaks in two. I don't forgive. I just wait. And the dragon never sleeps.
