Little Miss Forgave-Without-Forgetting

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
Eva, in that cold room at Birkenau, 1995,
you set down the stone you'd carried since the ramps of 1944.
Not tossed away, but placed gently on the damp earth,
where the wind could touch it, but your hands no longer had to.
The doctor's name still sharp in your mind, Josef Mengele,
but the weight, that breaking-your-back weight, released.

[Chorus]
Oh, this stone I've hauled, rough granite from that August argument,
1998, when words cut like shattered glass on the kitchen floor.
I remember every shard, every drop of blood on the tile,
but I lay it here, by the riverbank at dusk,
not forgetting, just breathing freer without it pressing my spine.
The grudge that bent me low, I straighten now.

[Verse 2]
Nelson, stepping out of Victor Verster, February 11, 1990,
you left the prison bars in memory, but dropped the chain of hate.
Twenty-seven years' burden, laid at the feet of a new South Africa,
not erased, but no longer chaining your steps forward.
I think of you when I pass that old letter in the drawer,
Anne's words echoing: giving up hope of a better past.

[Bridge]

Stone, you've been my companion, heavy in my pocket,
through winters and the long nights of replaying the hurt.
But here, on this bridge over the Seine, I let you fall,
watch the water swallow without a ripple of regret.
Memory stays, etched like initials in bark,
but the carrying, the breaking, that ends now.

[Verse 3]
In my hand, this worn pebble from Robben Island's shore,
symbol of what was, not what must be.
I address you, old pain, not to banish but to rest,
lay you beside the path where wildflowers push through cracks.
Freedom isn't forgetting, it's walking unbowed.

[Outro]

Laid down, but not lost.
Breath comes easier now.