Have you ever woken up inside a flashback?
Do you know how it feels to be pushed down into your own body after years of being pulled apart?

I awoke many times in a haze,
wondering what year it was;
months ago I finally came to and I thought I was trapped in 2014
and instead of waking to go to school,
like I was so convinced of,
I went to work and went through the motions of something I somehow knew all too well.

How did I go so many years in this separation of self?
I awoke to all of this abundance and responsibility I don't remember creating.
I could have cried out screams of mercy
for whatever stole all these years
to give them back.

I typed away at my computer,
but it all felt so foreign.
I was supposed to be in high school;
I'm supposed to be myself.

I've awoken many times in absolute fear,
not even sure who I am,
where I am,
what time period I'm in.
It's terrifying and I'm so tired of being ripped apart from reality like this.

Have you ever been consumed by a flashback?
Hurled and spit out by the jaws of the past
and regurgitated into the present?
I've never understood why it has to keep happening.

I am tired of living in waking memory;
I want this tortuous cycle to end.