Goodbye to Ashley Alter, to Sean Mulligan and Mike Levy, Fare thee well Sarah LeCates and Very Sincerely Dedicated to You

Today, I realized
I am the sole repository of all my own life.
I am the custodian of my past.
From my very first memories (it is of orange leaves, bright orange leaves that I am buried in, and leaf was my first word, say it, say leaf, it is a pretty word, a happy little girl word)
My first kiss (it is with a boy named daniel he wears blue wire frame glasses and he is shocked and stunned at first and then he is very happy and he returns the kiss and we kiss five times, five times, FIVE TIMES and everyone at camp talks about it for the rest of the week)
The first car accident, me, slamming forward, mmy enitre body torso head neck spun
Forward my eyes spinning my head rolling I close my mouth and smeel vomit and steel
And the cold taste of shame
And fear, and pain, and the ugly gray feeling of childhood closetmonsters
And the first words the woman said were, "Are you okay?"
The last time I ever saw you (you were standing on your doorstep studying me behind mousebrown hair and a pair of specs).
These are my charges, I have to remember them, and remember every good and bad thing, not just to remember them, but to recall them well, to recall the sights and sensations and the electric shock feeling of a guy pressing his lips to my neck.
I am not just responsible for my own memories but the related memories of every person who has ever told me of their past.
I must remember Castor's stories about walks in the park, and James telling me about getting bananas in Soviet Russia and getting arrested twice at American University, and my granfather's stories about the now long dead tress of the Muncie Valley.

This is my job also. I must fulfill my job.
I will remember reluctantly the sudden breakdown, flashbacks my brother would have, he would say, deep in the dark of the car rides home.
If I ever asked MY brother anything, I wouldn't be able to see straight for a week. And my eyes fill with tears , I blamed it on the heat in the car it was stifling but then, then, I remember, I remember, I remember, I am built on these memories, my brother exiting the car, my daddy looking down at the man in the middle of the road lying down my daddy saying, someone call 911, my daddy, me crying, tears now everywhere down my chin dripping forming puddles and the puddles are my mother's eyes when she sees me with my right arm bent backwardsways, it is a glorious disgusting tingly red mess, she says, "Oh yes, I think you broke it," she is stifling laughter, she is a good woman, she is a calm woman.

This is a way of me saying goodbye. This is a way for me to tell all the little boys and girls who are telling me
Day in
Day out
Oh, Alana, please stay, oh Alana, don't leave, oh Alana, oh Alana.
But I have made my decision. I will live among the rocks. And I will live roughshod. And I will drink life like champagne.
I am filled with a deep sadness,
I cannot convey
I can't relate
How is it that of all the people in the world given the job of remembering my past, I'm the one who got that job? I'm a terrible rememberer.
I mix up names in conversation and say the punch line too early in jokes and I always skip lines in plays.
Now I'm stumbling away into the incoherent
But before I leave I must say this.
Thank you for giving me your memories. And for giving me sensations. And thoughts. And ideas. But mostly for your memories. These are good gifts.
And I have given in return.
Soon I will make an exit, and become a prominent social security number, a college professor, fighter pilot, a resistance leader, a mother, a friend, a lover.
And I will drink life like champagne.

with help from S.M.