Poets Anonymous Ink: Cutting Baby Teeth

A person cannot be blameless/faultless/flawless. A person cannot be unblemished/perfect/guiltless.

All these years & I thought it was

you,

but where is my personal responsibility

(my personal culpability)?

I say you were the adult, I say you should have been mature, I say you shouldn’t have said allthoseterriblethings.

But what if

it was me,

it was me,

it was always me?

Maybe I shredded that last nerve.

Perhaps I pushed you a step too far.

What if all those years I thought your eyes were

dead,

I just couldn’t be bothered to see the gleam?

You told me the splinters in your hand are from the cross you carry,

that the gash in your side is from a soldier’s sword,

but we all know martyrs cannot support their own weight, but

what if instead of saving me, you were busy protecting yourself?

What if you weren’t the enemy?

What if I wasn’t the bowl of sugar I told myself I was?

What if this story I’ve told myself is warped & distorted?

You repeat a story enough & it conforms to the shape of the container you put it in.

It’s amorphous, but pour it into another vase –

& you’ll discover perhaps the blame lies within the child.

Perhaps she was cutting her baby teeth on everything soft & you were just protecting yourself.

Maybe it was me.

Maybe it was me.

Maybe it was me.