The blame lies with no-one, or someone.

Accountability

You insist it was your fault – a mistaken docility
meant laying your own face open
to the kind of teeth that shred on impact.

I know a man who has recast his life
so that everything is reversed: whole
swathes of time and imagination gone.

I am not so sure about you. I consider pictures
of your steri-strip trust as it dawns on me
that blame is not a mantle you can claim like that.

He did not bludgeon you, or me, but
by association this is true. He cannot save himself
this way; the blame remains immovable.

It is fierce in its steadiness around the decision
as it was made. The man-in-reverse does not deserve
your pity. All this blood takes it out of your hands.

How do you give empathy for someone to use
who has never had the practice?