Story of the Week>
Blame Me


3 May 2009

Blame Me

 

By

 

George O. Obikoya

 

I wonder if to stop. It is futile. No. Maybe I should not say that. Well, can you blame me for giving up? I know that you blame me for not trying hard enough, for causing all your problems. When I travel my natural path, along denuded slopes, and someone gets hurt, in person, or otherwise, it is my fault. Even when gluttony reigns I am to blame.

 

No one seems to care about Peter who cannot afford what he needs for temperance. It is fine to devour all in sight to fill the purse. Never mind that I get the blame when his source offends noble souls or he gives up the soul in despair gobbling enough to desolate its sanctuary.

 

His wife distraught though counts slight to make the change. Even a little lithium for my company may some now say save the day. No. Not even when many also expire lacking what in truth should for all be given would she count. I want to give all and they know it. That they insist on not letting me tells what may be deliberate intent, inspired perhaps by greed.

 

Yet, more underlies what surfaces. The crypts from whence my spirit flows lie atop a firmament of impiety made for show. And it is not personal. How else does one see through the cacophony that even the deaf dread? How much more needs seen to clear the air of the denseness with which I often struggle only to get the blame for want. It matters little now if even in drops or not all at they find me, it seems, even as all moan the millstone of the pervasive soul that they ballyhooed.

 

Still, I cry as from me whence they come to see their abode shrink when in waves they push me into their homes. Wherever I go, north or south they talk about chameleonic being my name, that headache for them is for me just a game. Yet, they fill the air with much to blame me for changing my way. Here they want me one way, thick perhaps as those that want me to melt at their feet oblivious duty goes both ways can be.  But I get the blame.

 

Granted my fury sometimes reminds with ferocity they grieve. Even then, the seasons they wreck just so some may say whose spoils they yearn. It appears that all that counts is bread, which speaks to why in fact we all should work to be sure we have enough to spread. And enough of me they may have but not it seems, they want to share. So, the toll rises in parts too distant only in mind, many even next door, for whom, we seem loathe caring.

 

Let us take care of all, the flowers and all. My well will remain full so long as we care. What is wrong with prudence beats, with facing up to the truth, heaven knows. Many must ask how long it takes for me not to be there for them to lapse. They know even without the answer provided not long it is.

 

Give me a sunny day and they flock. Give me fever and they sponge. I will douse your fire, bathe and cleanse you and clean your wares. With a bout of alimentary riot flourishes disarray. We may no longer need an ark. Yet, levy me up and suppose you are right. You see, what you lack is what flusters, knowing you should not as in history now want. How much more must we bear, and for how many more in comfort faraway from home must the mobile walls that what is beyond my reach triggers wallop before dawn breaks?

 

Lax warning systems we hail would be my guess if they ignored those that nature reveals by the day. Even the heavens see me shrink in locations inland and out. The fish cry even more than their foes. We all just whinge, expectedly, to no avail.  Crises seem to beckon to thrill. We relish the turmoil in praise of pyrrhic gain. Our foibles are on display when for us we lack the will to quell the restless soul. And we don’t like that.   

 

True, we should exalt triumph over challenges. But we should not eschew humility. Chivalry is not hubris, conquest, not an end. What nobility is in seeing me waste? Yet, waste seems my middle name. That it is me is not the point. Rather, it is who they waste, all my own, even those privy to the waste. And I know I get the blame.

 

There are still mountain tops out there from whence purity flows. May be doing something about those downstream is now a mantra due. Treat me well and you will access my every form, wherever you go, as even the celestial bodies cherish the amity we have. To think how much of this my soul gives you seem to snub may tickle some way beyond we doubt are even there but may be and may lack what you have.  

 

We want to be merry, but we should also want to be healthy as both operate in tandem many would say. But it seems that you do not want to take me with you to nirvana. You make me believe that all you want to do is blame me for you not getting there. Something tells me that you forget that I am most of you, let alone that nurturing milieu in which you thrived back when you started out. That’s a shame.

 

You even do not seem to care to snatch me from fumes that emanate from you that color me bad. All you want to do is blame me for all your woes, for which probably you crave penance within. That’s okay. Go ahead, and blame me. It may thrill now, but may be not sooner than you need another trip. And the last rip may be just imminent, which makes me wonder, not stop, about what to do to save my own.