#internal war

🧠 BLACKSITE SCROLLTRAP — “THE FUTILITY OF THE GRUDGE”

I used to think about my comeback to you, man. You know that?

About the one-liner. The perfect checkmate. The buried resentment I’d carve into poetry if we ever met again.

You damaged my ego in a way that didn’t make headlines — just rewrote footnotes in my memory.

Nothing major. A personal slight. But I thought we were cool.

I was younger. You were seasoned. About your business in a way I now admire and once resented. Back then? I thought you were loud. Obnoxious. Overbearing. The type of man whose name echoed in a room before he even walked in.

And I was silent. Sharp, but quiet. Watching. Judging. Building my counter-argument in the dark like a petty architect.

Oh how we thank the past “enemies” of our lives. Maybe not “enemy” — More like rival. Brother. Irritant. Ally-turned-symbol-of-my-inferiority.

I bookmarked you. Silently. Filed you under “someday I’ll show him.”

And someday came.

Only to destroy me.

I looked you up. Googled you from a place of ego. Wanted to see if life had been kind to you. If you were failing. If you were bloated. If you were anything but better than me.

And the result?

A memorial. Photos. Of you smiling. Of people remembering you with honor. With fucking honor.

And a date. A year.

You’d been gone for three.

And I had been angry at a man who’d already left this world.

I remember the heat leaving my body. The click of the mouse like a gunshot to my pride. I had rented space in my heart to a ghost who never knew I was holding the deed.

I was ashamed. Ashamed that my hate outlived your breath. Ashamed that I gave anger so much oxygen while you were fighting for real air.

And now?

I mourn you.

Belatedly. Backwards. Like a man learning to salute after the war is over.

I saw your family’s words. Their pictures. The way they spoke of you in tones of reverence.

I didn’t see the man I resented.

I saw the man they loved.

This poem is my letter. This post is my shame. This verse is my late, crooked, broken-toothed apology to the man who taught me what hate really costs by dying before I got the chance to let it go.

You didn’t fail me. I failed you. By not forgiving you sooner. By not understanding you deeper. By not being a man when it counted.

The grudge is a liar. It whispers that you’re justified. It tells you you're owed something. It convinces you that bitterness is power. But it’s not.

It’s just a wound that wears your name while poisoning your spine.

So this is my truth:

You won. Not the argument — But the meaning.

You taught me something after you were gone.

You left earth with more peace than I had. You died with more clarity than I lived.

And now?

I live different.

I forgive quicker. I speak softer. I love louder. I don't bookmark rivals. I delete the damn folder.

Because when regret hits it doesn’t knock. It breaks in.

And it brings your face with it.

So rest easy, brother. You were never my enemy. Just the mirror I was too young to face.

🫡

I meant that.

But I guess a part of me was hoping that your happiness included me.

I was wrong.

Oh boy was I not ready for that hurt.

But I have always put you first.

So I guess now we're both putting you first, aren't we?

But if you're happier without me, fine. I don't really want to talk to you again.

But I promised you, didn't I? That I would stay no matter what.

That I would love you. Always.

I meant it.