It’s Not Your Fault

It’s Not Your Fault

 

It’s not your fault . . . . . . .

 

I alone bear the cost of the life I chose to live,

Forsaking all I was taught, operating on a collision course,

destroying every bit of structure in my path.

 

Obliterated the ones that tried to redirect me

with the highest levels of disrespect,

paying back an olive branch with a burnt bridge,

sabotaging success because I was broken. . . .

 

So I sought the broken, and made my residence among them,

the pressure of overachieving reached its peak.

Diminished my standards as I put distance

between me and a promising future,

loving to be with the ones awake among the sleep.

 

Hid in the brush like a weakened lion too afraid to display my scars,

even more afraid they would heal enough for me to try again. . . . . .

I wanted to remain in a perpetual state of pain and chaos,

because I didn’t believe I had the strength to face myself.

 

Became addicted to hollowness,

following hollow-tips because the prospects of death were inevitable.

Visualized an empty funeral, alone in a 6 by 3.

 

Accomplished nothing by causing more suffering,

hoping that in the process you’d forgive me,

hoping that you’d miss me. . . . .

 

I couldn’t receive your offerings,

didn’t understand your love enough to see that you never quit

trying to hold that mirror up.

Aiming for me to see that I was still there,

but I feared looking up because I knew I was stuck.

 

Pushed you away because I couldn’t bear your touch,

so I made my home amongst the rubble. . . .

 

Don’t feel like you had to try harder,

work smarter, or reach farther

in order to change my circumstances.

 

Try harder, work smarter,

reach farther to see that God had other plans.

 

He’s given me a platform to reach the broken;

to see the people that have lost hope,

given me a light within me to lead them all home.

He’s humbled me, grown me into this prominent structure

that will always rely on my roots,

that will always rely on the truth and that truth being. . . . . .

 

It’s not your fault.

Marshall Jones is a 40 year old man on a lifelong journey of bearing fruit for the Kingdom of God. The author of "A Raven's Meal" (RoseDog Books), a poetry collection, he aspires to target the grey areas, and the people who are terribly misunderstood by society. Believing that everyone deserves a voice, he not only shares his testimony, but he also tries to use his gifting to share other people's experiences as well. He writes from the prison system that has housed his body for 18 years, but also from the place that has been the catalyst to his freedom. Click on the YouTube Link below for his Book. or go to https://www.redthreadpoets.com/published-works/