#whalebones

I don’t know how to explain what it’s like to be stuck in the dark like this (and I’m a poet, a damn good one), but how do you explain this to the conscious, this dissociation?

I don’t feel like me, but I know I’m here. Almost like that feeling when you’ve been dreaming all night long, one long storyline after another, until the walls start pressing in, things look strange, and you realize, shit, this was all a dream.

And once you realize you’re dreaming, your brain wakes you up, like, hey, this isn’t right, this isn’t reality. I need stability, real breath and bone, real walls and autonomy.

Except in this darkness, there’s no automatic kick out of the warped dreamland. Or there is, but your consciousness keeps hitting a wall, like a battering ram that won’t breach.

So then, you’re stuck. Knowing you’re unconscious, but you can’t wake up. Walking through darkness with no gravity; no pain, no light, no nerve endings.

Every once in a while, I hear a voice echoing, like some faraway phone call, but the service keeps cutting out. Or like the forgotten scratchy intercom of a condemned building. I run through the darkness, trying to find it, but I lose it every time.

Dreams try to flicker in, like instead of the brain trying to reach for reality, it does the opposite, like it’s now safer to distract the falling apart with better memories; fake scenes orchestrated to sedate the knowledge that you’re stuck and you can’t wake up.

And you fall for them, because they look warmer than the darkness. And then it’s just a whole sickening cycle: falling into dreams for too long, realizing you’re unconscious, the brain trying to kick you out, then hitting a wall, then running through darkness knowing you’re stuck. Over and over.

And I know something is wrong. I can feel it even in my glitched-out state. Even though the body I am using to run through this darkness isn’t my physical one.

Something is off, and I don’t know what it is.

I get stuck in a cycle of dreams again. Moments back in my childhood home, classrooms, late nights in cars I shouldn’t be in, or even late nights in my own breathing in cigarette smoke like it’s oxygen.

When the battering ram hits and I get stuck in the darkness again, I hear another voice.

My grandma. I chase her, running like my life depends on it. And I find her flickering like a memory God doesn’t want me to witness.

She died sixteen months ago. I swear I can feel her arms like we’re both alive. No, you don’t understand. I can feel your touch, the ghost of you, wrapping around my broken body. But you’re not really here. Shit, it’s all a dream.

She disappears and the battering ram hits. It’s not reality, but it’s hard to not want it back; those moments of numbness and fleeting memory-warmth.

I’d give anything to be young and ignorant again.

Back when my mom was the safest person in the world and not the enemy, not the one whose favorite pastime is to test how many different ways my soul can be ripped out.

Back when my grandma was still alive, and her clock would chime in the middle of the night while I slept on the couch, like it was singing me to sleep instead of counting down every second closer to her demise. Back when watching someone get old meant they could somehow live forever, not that they were slowly learning how to abandon gravity. (Isn't it really the opposite, though? Deadweight is gravity's forte.) Back when death didn’t feel like something stalking the edge of every room.

Back when friends were just friends, and not the demons that keep you up at night, wondering when the evil set in and was plotted against you. Back when friendship bracelets were law and bodies were inexperienced in knife-in-the-back theology.

Back when I was still a sister and we were all just girls together. Back when I wasn’t the stranger in the middle of four other kids and they used to know my favorite color. Back when I wasn’t the black sheep, transgender, and trying to convince them I could still be a good brother. I’m still the same person you’ve always known. Please don’t look away.

Back when summer felt like a lifetime, and winters went by quickly. And the only worry was, Dad, can we go to Dairy Queen? Mom, can we play outside? Sisters, do you want to play tag or hide-and-seek?

Back when I thought love could be a fairytale and it wouldn’t be so goddamn hard for someone to stay. Back when romance novels were the epitome of love, and you really could just meet the love of your life on a random Tuesday and live happily ever after. Back when love meant ease instead of endurance.

And I need it back. I need it back. I need it back. I need it back.

But I know how this will end. All of my yesterdays will be stuck inside me, bent metal in my ribcage hitting absence and curling back in on itself. Over and over until my chest cavity becomes a labyrinth of rust and steel, and the memories reverberate like wind whistling through whale bones (because I swear my heart is just as big; god, isn’t that just more to break? Haven’t I already endured the weight of it? Haven’t others already deemed me too heavy to hold?)

Who are we to love at all?

Let it go

Let it go

Let it go

look at all those OCs!