“Gamin’ the Blame.” Fiction. Based on a True Session of False Accusation.

“And finally, instead of running to blame people, places and things, I started to want to get deeper and get to the bottom of it…”

—Destiny Storm

“Gamin’ the Blame.”

Fiction. Based on a True Session of False Accusation.

By Dorothy England

This journal entry is inspired by true events. Some of the characters, names, businesses, incidents, and certain locations and events have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Any similarity to the name, character or history of any person is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

Trigger Warning: our program often motivates people to discuss their trauma. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, please, take a step back to address emotional flashbacks and trauma before continuing to push yourself. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911 or the National Suicide Hotline at (1-800) 273-8255.

I pin my pain on you
Thinking somehow it will be less heavy across my own chest.
Instead, the motion only offers a second of relief
And then I am stacked with guilt
At the words I’ve spit, with fire, towards you.

I direct my wails
Towards your ears
Blaming you for my mistakes,
Thinking in doing so,
They will become affixed to your being
And no one will see what a gigantic failure I can be.

Instead, the noise of my anguish
Pulls crowds and nosy glances.
It alerts the curious public
That I am not sane in this moment.
In trying to shine a light on you,
I burst into flames of torment and frustration
And I blaze down the streets, trailing commotion
Through the smoke of accusations.

Why do I race to place this anger
This grief
This anxiety,
Outside of myself, to stretch it from my skin
And try to smear your body with its foul stench?
I know, intrinsically,
It is not logical to think this way,
To figure it so easy and light when the worrisome thoughts are so hard and solid.

But emotionally, I struggle
Performing hopscotch with my reasonings.
Delivering fallacies upon superstitions.

(Sigh)

You’re right.
I cannot place my blame on your shoulders,
Even if you are here to hear my cries and bursts
I cannot point a finger at you for my own errors and impulses
Particularly when you are holding my erratic hands against your own warm palms.
I cannot scream scratchy howls of your placid manner,
As you open your ears and close your lips to my blubbers.

No.
I must count the ways I’ve walked wrong
Shine the light of my eyes, on where I’ve been mistaken
On where my ego has blinded me instead of the truth.

Only then, will my pain subside
Will my wounds begin to heal.
Only then, my mind will quiet
Against the rush of excuses I no longer need.

Only then I will be free.