It Wasn't Us
Thumbnail image lovingly appropriated from Patrick Benson’s illustrations for the Minpins by Roald Dahl.
Good evening, I am here again reporting for work. Reporting for song. I’m opening up for whatever comes along. And I will be open to you and your song.
That’s what I promise, and my promises are never wrong. OK it’s been a little while since I’ve dared to show up, I’ve been scared of what comes through the doors. I tried to lock it up, I tried to seal it up, I posted notices of who can come in and who can’t, but still there’s been this seeping growing creeping leaking presence. And I don’t always have the stomach to face it. And I know you don’t blame me. And I know that any pressure I place on myself is mine.
It’s not that easy to find my way in these waters full of murk. I admit that I am full of fear and guilt and shame, and regret for what I’ve done. And even fear of what I’ve done, and even shame for what I’ve been, or what I could be or might have been. In all the parallels, full of possibilities. There is always some chance something goes wrong.
I promise, and my promises are never wrong. My intentions are never bad, and the words I say are heartfelt. I know you know me, and the earnestness I am in every breath I take. I know you know me well, the places where I’ve been too scared to let go. I know you know me well, dark places I don’t like to see are there. You know me well, the infected places where things have all gone wrong. You know me well, the parts of me that are still bound in shadows.
You know me well and you are always by my side, even when I look aside, even when I look away, because of something I have done, or thought or been, or taken on in my endless lostness.
Your forgiveness stuns me in my heart. It wakes me open, it breaks me open, it wakes me up, it wake me open. And I’m sorry for what I’ve been. I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. And I’m so sorry for who I’ve been. And I’m still hanging on as if it was me, I want to find out just what happened, how did it go so wrong? There’s an innocent inside me, just like an innocent in every single one of us that thinks it’s her fault, that thought she did it, that thought she cut the tie that broke the world.
We have been blamed too much. Told that it was us. It wasn’t us. It wasn’t our badness and what we did, it wasn’t our choices, it wasn’t our craven desires and our inability to control ourselves, it wasn’t us, we didn’t choose it, we didn’t make it or design it. We inherited it in our flesh and in our bodies.
It wasn’t us. We didn’t make the darkness. We didn’t betray you. We didn’t betray you with our straying.