Echo: I

There were so many times it did not make sense. 

Other times, everything was crystal clear and played out predictably. 

It was like needing a high and looking for it in unusual places. 

Distraction and numbness to squelch out something here today?

Or was that yesterday?

The lines were blurry in the losses and the losses that were not yet manifest.

I remember an energy that could socially affect my incomprehending heart.

It filled me like the wine that I did not even know the taste of,

providing a sweet, intoxicating wave to ride in a part of my life that stands alone.

It was good for me because I had a friend there.

It was better for her because her friend took her to a different time, 

When denial could still thrive, and she did not have to push back so hard on the pain.

People there talked differently; it seemed so foreign, somehow, making me thankful.

In the corners of my mind, I see the dining room, table legs, stairs, living room, and kitchen.

My associative memory keeps sounding an alarm claxon, but I don't know why.

It is more ingrained in me than another afternoon in which a fatal accident happened, 

just feet away from the porch, 53 years ago.

The outside of the house, too, I see in my daily thoughts. Why?

These are the questions that I need to ask.

Somebody somewhere has to know why.