Heather

I sometimes can
still hear your voice.
Whispers in the wind...
It's funny, all my memories
of you,
are us as kids.
Not when you died,
at seventeen...
---
You had it all, wanted for nothing,
but what you craved
the most,
seemed the farthest away,
acceptance...
Being a teacher's kid
was like being a social pariah
in those days.
Attempts to fit in
were followed by bad choices
we have all made
in our youth,
some of us
still making those type of choices
as adults,
under the guise of "fitting in".
---
What brought me home
that weekend from school,
I still do not know....
---
Why you were on our road
heading into town
to drop off fellow partiers,
will remain a mystery.
Dead people don't always
give up answers,
do they?
---
So there's my mom,
looking out the window
in my room,
stating she heard a noise.
"Turn the porch light on,
there's been an accident"
No sooner had I done so
a kid I went to school with
came running up our drive.
He had cuts, he was dazed,
then he told me who was driving.
NOOOOOO!
Not you Heather!
Running out to a smoking car
in the ditch,
there you were, lying there,
oh so quiet,
While other kids were wailing.
I held your hand,
willing you to wake up,
snap out of this state you were in.
I swear you opened your eyes,
looked me dead in the face,
me, telling you it was going to be ok.
Later they told me
you had never regained consciousness.
---
I think of all the things
you have missed
all these years.
I think about your folks,
never seeing you graduate,
get married, have kids of your own.
I often wonder if you
would have achieved that acceptance
you so desperately craved,
if your life hadn't ended
at seventeen?