words by ava

“Life is a runaway train you can’t wait to jump on”- Already Gone, Sugarland 

An echo of a former self/ beats back to me/ like a long lost love letter/ or a message floating in a bottle/ sent off to sea/ now returned.

All those hours/ stretching Barbie doll arms/ into tight fitting dresses/ and cramming two-toned wedges/onto tiny feet/imagining/ pool parties in the dreamhouse/ villainous other girls/ and marriage// wishing to grow up/ignorant that/ to plant that seed/to nurture that thought/was to flee from a world/a bedded nest/ tended to/ by parents/ that would circle/the sun/like Daedalus/who searched for Icarus/until his throat was raw// And the echo/once so loud/ fades away.

Oh/what happens/when an echo dissipates/does it disappear/lost/ like a grain of sand/in an hourglass/tipped the wrong way//could an echo/ be/congruent/begging from you as much as you/ once gave it/ or is it just/ a drawn out death/ of a sound/that has been long/ gone?

The prayers/ I would chant/to a God/ I was starting to question/on those first days/ driving alone/ at sixteen//Freedom/ soon became/ a terror/ uncertainty festering/ and the stress/oh, the stress/what becomes of me?/out into the world/no one to protect you/ and comfort comes back/ only in echoes/ that beat back to you// and to realize/sixteen now is/but an echo/as faint as the days/of seven.

But just now/ to be again/ in the backseat/a passenger/driven by parents/and I feel again/ that this is how/ it is supposed to be/in the same seat I always occupied/ as a child/constantly appealing/are we there yet/ what else/ but the fleeting words/ of a tied up toddler/confined to the back seat/of a car moving steadily/ down a highway/ of no known end/moving through life/channeling down that road/as a unit/ as one/ in a car made for/ all of us. 

Oh/the indefatigableness/ of a child/their persistence/tirelessness/I miss that/ passion/I weep/for a past self/that did not know that/to grow up/ was to say/goodbye/ to the notions of/ self/ that you promised/ would one day/ come true/ and I look again/ into that rearview mirror/ pause to glimpse what I have passed/but only now realizing/an echo is but a repetition of the source/a slight mutation/of a self/that still stands/now larger/taller/moving forward.