Disassociate

I leave my body without moving.

Eyes open, but I am elsewhere.

The room blurs, voices stretch thin,

and I hover just above myself

like smoke that forgot its fire.

Disassociation feels like safety,

but it is also loss.

A way of surviving the unbearable

by not being there at all.

Time folds in strange ways.

Minutes dissolve,

hours vanish,

days pass like a dream

I can’t quite remember

but can’t wake from either.

I watch my hands move,

hear my mouth speak,

but none of it belongs to me.

I am vaguely familiar to myself,

a stranger inhabiting my skin.

And yet,

this distance once saved me.

It kept me alive when being present

was too dangerous, too sharp, too much.

But now, healing asks me to stay.

To return,

to feel,

to sit inside my own body

without slipping through its seams.

Disassociation taught me survival.

Presence will have to teach me living.