Dissociating

I know, on a molecular level, I exist. I am here, in life. Life is happening near me, around me.

But I don’t exist and none of this is real.

I’m floating outside the physical, in something like a dream. I’m moving my eyes around the room from 5 feet away, 5 feet above. I see the space. I’m not in it.

Something grabs me, snaps me back to my shell like a fraying rubber band. I concentrate on operating my equipment; what’s normal? Moving muscles, forming smiles, saying words. I’m in it now, but more like right behind it.

I’m making decisions, calling shots, triggering events; but I’m not the pilot. I’m in the back seat watching all my actions play out with no idea how I got here. It’s hard work being in my audience, I’m tired.

Wait, whoa. Sudden clarity comes in on a wave, and with it too much awareness. There’s an apple in my hand, but I don’t want the knowledge. Not good or evil or anything at all. I turn up the music, keep turning, keep turning; force the tide back out.

There it goes and there I go again, an external passenger tethered, untethered by something like survival. Feeling transitions to nothing at all—ahhh how I missed this empty bliss.

There’s a term for it, they say.
It’s a mechanism, they say.
It’s not healthy, they say.
You can’t stay there, they say.

But those are words I put away before I even heard them. Maybe I’ll take them out tomorrow, or look at them the next.

I lost my shadow. I am my shadow. Can someone sew me back?

Nevermind, pay me no mind, I really don’t mind this space.