What Everyone Said and What I Believe

Ever since I was a child I was reminded it was not my fault. 
I was reminded it was not my fault and I would never believe it.

When my mother and father were set at each other throats
words pressed to each other's skin like knives, or really like
any cutlery that was closest to their shaking hands, 
pressing harder with each threat and hoping maybe one
might pierce the other first because neither wants to 
be the first to apologize for bleeding to the other.
My grandmother said it was not my fault that they fight.

When my mother finally left the house but took nothing
with her, the house still felt empty without her body.
Constantly I tried to replace it with my own: sitting in
her chair at the counter, laying on the right side of the
bed where she laid with my father, cooking breakfast
or making the bed or putting the dishes away.
The space molded awkwardly to my tiny body but 
it still left some open gaps that I could not fit in.
My neighbor said it was not my fault I could not fill them.

When the death of a family started to settle in
I was sorry for the loss, and I grieved it every day by 
living in the places a home had burned down, kicking 
around the ashes that pooled around my feet, breathing
in the hazy smoke from the aftermath of the fire,
and trying to find any keepsake that could spring a memory.
I tried to understand why it had burned down and where
the origin was. That maybe it had started with the cradle or
maybe the family's generational gaslit candle was the match.
My father said that it was not my fault that the home is broken.

When I finally began to age it still would not match 
the maturity that everyone claimed was beyond my years.
I always brushed the comment aside because it
was a pointless comment to make since it was simply how
I have been from the start of childhood, so why care now?
My anger started to spark and others provided more than
enough kindling to ignite a flame building in my bones
and I would spread like wildfire on a dry hot day, untamable 
and free like the wind; I was unstoppable; I was fury. 
My teachers said it was not my fault that I felt like this. 

When I finally realized that my father took to the drink
no matter what he was feeling in order to leave this world
only momentarily in hopes it could sully the feelings he 
has in reality and drown himself because he is comforted
by the weight of the drink and the freeness of its effects.
I knew by then he had already sealed his fate with each sip
and it will only be a matter of time until his watch claims
his time of death like a sickly whisper and he will have 
been paid what he asked for: a mind that is eternally silent.
Even if I plead to him that he is downing poison and 
life is already short but he is inching off minutes of his own
by doing this -- I tell him I do not want to watch him kill 
himself like my mother had told him once before -- he 
cannot hear me because he is deaf and only is coherent 
when there is a bottle on the table and a bottomless glass. 
My mother says that it is not my fault he is addicted.

When I think back on all of this now with the proper age 
and a slightly healthier outlook than what I had years ago
I hold myself like I am fragile in an unbreakable way.
Still, with firm delicacy but with the sound knowledge 
I can withstand any tragedy I am put through by trial. 
I tell myself it was never my fault for any of those things. 
I tell myself it was never my fault and I finally believe it.