Nine Lives

The first time I died,
I was five years old.
My father, tired of my crying,
threw me against my bedroom wall.
I felt my breath leave my lungs as I fell to the floor.

I feared death then,
It's icy grip, around my throat.
Choking me, stopping the air.
My head pounding, begging for blood, begging for life.

My mother killed me next,
It was a car accident.
Not her fault, but the result was the same.
Flying thru the cabin, and into the glass.
Time stood still, and then I was gone.

When I was in High School, things took a turn for the worse.
I died on a dare, Drowning that time.
An auto accident, my friend driving drunk.
A jealous boyfriend. I can't remember them all.
They begin to fade after a time.

A few years ago, a motorcycle crash.
Some deer in the road, pain before all went black.
Suicide next, when my life was a mess.
It's surprising how easy it comes and it goes.
The fear that you felt when your young, no more.

The Buddah says, there is no past, and no future,
They do not exist. All that we have is right now.
It is the only life there is.

I wonder why then, I remember them all,
Why these scars on my body.
this pain in my mind, persists.
I wonder if it will always be?
or does it ever end?
Maybe that is what he meant.