Sonnet on a One-time Friend

Erase me from your mind, if you so will,
I am not so easily forgotten.
For though my memory you wish to kill,
Your old cruelty remains – decrepit, rotten.
And this is my lasting revenge on you:
Your knowledge of that cruelty shall stay,
Whilst I, so changed, with life shall continue,
As you have left, and now it is my day!
And yet, if now, you came upon me here,
And spoke with kindness for a little time,
These lines I would destroy and my past clear,
Halting enmity, which in itself’s a crime.
For, although this truce would come too late,
My mind is weak, and so not made for hate!