grim ovenbird When you were still a child, but peering over the edge of adulthood, your grandmother died at your feet while you stood helpless in the halls of a crowded shopping mall. Her heart stopped without warning and you watched while paramedics failed to start it again. Your mother, in her corrosive grief, blamed you for her loss. If you hadn’t insisted on going to the mall that day, if you hadn’t refused to go home when your grandmother said she was tired, if you hadn’t existed, if you hadn’t… You carry your guilt like a worn teddy_bear, all frayed edges and lumpy stuffing. You won’t let it go no matter what anyone says. It’s yours and you intend to have it tucked against you when you take your last breath. You touch the soft edges of trauma to your cheek, inhale the mildewed memories. It wasn’t your fault. You know it wasn’t your fault but you saw the blame written all over your mother’s face when she looked at you and the story became more real with every telling. You were the accidental reaper that stood by, scythe in hand, while your grandmother abandoned her body leaving you to explain the heap of vacant flesh left crumpled on the cold tile. Death left stains on your hands that you’ve never been able to wash out. If you killed your grandmother you wonder what else you might inadvertently extinguish. You wonder, but you’ve never brought an end to your own torment. That isn’t a thing that dies. It lives while your grandmother lies in the ground. It eats your shame, and thrives. 251013 what's it to you? who go blather from