Echos

If it could go wrong I promise you I have probably over analyzed it in my head,

Every angle,

Every what if,

Every question answered by a systematic response from my brain.

It is involuntary. 

These thoughts that race like cannon balls 

Aimed at my destruction 

And sleep,

Evades me.

Whispers in my ear,

A voice that is not my own,

I wonder if anyone else can hear her tell me I am not good enough?

Sometimes I can’t scream loud enough to drown it out.

I often wonder who she is,

The five year old girl who watched you walk away?

The nine year old girl who realized she was “different” only because you told her she was?

The thirteen year old girl who didn’t understand why she couldn’t stay?

The fourteen year old girl who just wanted to be normal?!!

The fifteen year old girl who felt lost surrounded by people she knew nothing of?

The sixteen year old girl who just wanted SOMEONE to be proud of her?

Maybe she is the seventeen year old girl who felt the first sting of death alone?

The nineteen year old girl who learned not even her body was her own?

Or the twenty two year old girl who held her daughter as she died?

I recognize the pain in her voice but it has been so long since I have listened to her talk.

She sounds so lonely.

It’s been six years 

2,190 days

And her voice seems so foreign to me now.

Like echoes of screams I can no longer hear. 

I wonder if she will ever stop hearing them?

-B-