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I'm Too Blame
Copyright 1999 Ginger Johnson
All Rights Reserved

I haven't written in my journal in weeks. Actually, months, not since that day. I fear what night escapes, the fear, the pain, the loneliness, the anger, the guilt, especially the guilt.

If onlys rule my world. Each day a hundred times, a thousand, I relieve my decisions and know now that the choices I made were wrong. I should have been there. If I had been there...

My friends argue until they are blue in the face. An act of god, a twist of fate, a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it doesn't do any good, I know that if I had been there things would have ended differently.

Occasionally, the head of reason asserts itself and tries to tell me it wasn't my fault, but I squash it flat because it's wrong. I made a promise and I broke it. If I had been there, I would have gone a different way and I wouldn't be sitting here lost and so alone.

Instead each night they come to me. The sights of flashing lights, the sounds of shattering glass, the smell of copper from blood flung over every surface. The darkness, the emptiness, voices crying out. Hands reaching out from the rumble, pleading with me. I run and run, but the trees hold me back. Their whispering reaches my soul but I refer to listen. They keep me from the wreckage and the carnage. I should have been there.

Life has done nothing for me, but demand everything I need everything I hold precious. It wasn't their turn to go. I should have been there and they would have come home.

I hated him. The bitterness fills my soul. It's his fault; it's my fault. Where were his friends when he was drinking those shots? He had enough in him to be legally dead the doctors said, but he's at home surrounded by family. Bruises and scrapes, not even a broken limb to show for the job he did of shattering my family.

It's their fault. Why did they have to go to that stupid show? They should have been here warm in our house, watching TV, eating popcorn. Safe and sound when the world crashed.

It's my fault; I should have been there for them. I was selfish and childish. I should have gone with them. They raised me, nurtured me, gave me what I needed, supplied me with what I wanted. An ungrateful child who thought only of herself. I should have been there. I should have saved them or died in the flames with them.

Leemsa is all I have left, all I came here with. A cat who doesn't blame me, but I blame me. What will happen to me when she's gone, the only one who doesn't stare at me and see the guilt. Who tries to lessen the pain, the loneliness, the anger.

The world is empty, barren, desolate without them. Life shouldn't make me go without them. We were the three musketeers. One for all and all for one. Now we number only one. I should have been there. I should have protected them, grabbed a hand and held on, kept them from leaving.

They blame me. The dreams. Each night they lay the blame at my feet. Show me my failure. I should have been there. I should have stopped them. Should have stopped them.

The What Ifs blame me. They whisper in my mind, they whisper to my soul. The oaks rustle outside my window, beating on the glass trying to get in. I close myself off to their crooning voice. They know nothing. I'm too blame.