here i sit
pitted against myself again
i am collapsing under the weight of it all-
limboing between recovery
and recognition
i don't remember who i am anymore.

haven't seen clearly in days
because all i see is her face
etched inside the mirror
in front of me.

i try to tell people what it's like
i try to remove myself from it
like it isn't my own autobiography
just someone else's

but that never works in my favor
it just causes even more disscociation

i have not been inside my own body
in 15 hours, i have counted them all.

they have sat heavy on my sternum
causing me to feel like i cannot inhale deep.

i have lost my ability
to do the one thing i have known since birth
and it is because of you.

how do you tell someone
they remind you of your abuser?

how do you let them know
that is also why you keep them around?

how do you know if you believe yourself
when you say that?

how do you know what happened to you
when the memory is lost inside time
and only shows itself when it's ready?

how do you make it ready?

how do you convince yourself you are?

none of these questions have answers,
the light of my reality is dimming slowly now
and everything around me will be dust soon
and this is not metaphor
this is how trauma eats away at my vision
at will- whenever it is hungry for my tragedy.

i hope it will subside soon
i hope these tears will satisfy it's emptiness.

i'm starting to wonder if there's any lost memory left
and then i blink and it's something else.

i wish everything wasn't so stained glass and fragile-
fragmented at the base of my eyes
projection is my only magic trick

i haven't taken a deep breath in 17 hours
i'm afraid of what it will feel like moving through my skin.

just another unwanted entity-
having control over me.