Forgiveness

Please do not believe me
if ever I should say that you've upset me.
Sometimes I forget the true source of my feelings.

You cannot make me sad,
impatient,
angry,
or otherwise dis-eased.
Only a hope or expectation of you on my part,
which you have not fulfilled,
can move me thus.

Yet I am much too human
to be without hopes and expectations,
and I am also much too human
to live always in the knowing
that my hopes and expectations
have no claim upon your being.

So if I say that you've upset me,
please forgive me for attempting
to disinherit my own self's creation of my pain.
And please do not ignore my deeper message:
I care enough about you
to include you in my hopes and expectations.
~Noel McInnis