Three poems on derealisation, dissociation and emotional amnesia from the other side of the glass.
Am I Real?…
The world is a window, and I’m behind glass,
Watching my life like a shadow show pass.
My brain flips a switch and it shuts off the light,
Swallowing whole both the wrong and the right.
It keeps out the terror, but locks out the real,
And leaves me with nothing to actually feel.
Without any passion, a memory dies,
It’s just a still picture in somebody’s eyes.
Whatever I do will be gone by tomorrow,
Stripped clean of the joy, stripped clean of the sorrow.
A scene on a screen while I sit in the dark,
Did I live my own life? Did I even leave a mark?
You can stare at your hand and not know if it’s yours,
A stranger inside of a house with no doors.
No weight to the moments, no bite to the pain,
Just cold, quiet static inside of a brain.
None of it touches me and none of it’s real.
Just a passenger watching a hands free wheel.
Stripped of the emotional, binding ties,
I watch my whole life pass before my eyes.
The Ghost In The Glass…
How do you know that a moment is real?
By the weight in your chest and the things you can feel.
The spark in your blood, or the sting of a tear,
The proof in the pulsing that tells you you’re here.
Now sever the wires and turn off the light,
Drown every emotion till nothing is bright.
When the inside is hollow and quiet as stone,
How do you prove that you’re living alone?
The life goes on around you, it moves like a show,
While you stand inside like a corpse down below.
The brain cuts the connection to keep out the pain,
And leaves you with nothing to show for the strain.
The present collapses, the past isn't mine,
Just loose, scattered pages from some other time.
I look in the mirror, but nobody’s there,
A ghost in the glass with a hollowed out stare.
I search through the drawers and I dig through the box,
To find an old memory locked under locks.
I hold it up close, but there’s nothing inside,
No heat and no heart, just a shell that has died.
How do you live when your past is a ghost?
When the things you have lost are the things you need most?
Except for one memory standing out clear,
The one that is bleeding, the one full of fear.
The terrified child who was trapped in the room,
Who grew up in violence, in panic and gloom.
The child no one saw and that nobody heard,
Who counted and ruled every single small word.
She was the Architect weaving the shield,
The master of every protection revealed.
She froze all the rest so the body could stand,
While she kept the fire alive in her hand.
So everything dies while she stays untouched,
The Architect keeping the truth in her clutch.
She’s the only real thing in a mind built of frost,
The origin point where the feelings were lost.
She sits in the dark while the rest turns to ash,
The one living wound from the original crash.
The Good, The Bad, And The Lost…
They think it’s all floaty, something dreamy and light,
A vague little absence that tucks out of sight.
They miss the mechanics, the price that is paid,
The deadbolt defense that the psyche has made.
Emotional amnesia, a clinical shield,
The heavy-wrought armour my disorders wield.
The present is slipping away as it lands,
A vanishing trick in unbreakable hands.
What good is an action, a deed, or a day,
When tomorrow arrives and it’s melted away?
To others, a scent can awaken the dead,
A song brings the past rushing into their head.
But smells hold nothing, and music falls flat,
My mind has no pathways for moments like that.
No echo of laughter, no cheer in the air,
The years leave no footprint, the seasons are bare.
A silence that settles without any sound,
Where someone is living but no trace can be found.
Good things happened, like the birth of my son,
A beautiful miracle, beautifully done.
I know there was terror, a hospital bed,
The weeks in the balance, the things that they said.
I know it occurred, but the feeling is cold,
A blank in the ledger where life should unfold.
I’d weep for the years that were stolen away,
If silence hadn't locked the tears at bay.
For all of the feelings that quietly died,
The life I surrendered, the history denied.
The bad cannot touch me, the trauma is gone,
The ghosts of addiction no longer live on.
But sleep has a way of unlatching the door,
And dreams drag me back to the needles and floor.
While daytime is distant, a phantom and thin,
The dream world feels solid, a heartbeat within.
I wake in a panic, filled with despair,
Believing the craving, believing the scare.
Until reality shatters open the spell,
And hands back the emptiness guarding the shell.
A mind stripped away like a soulless machine,
All memories intact but emotions wiped clean.
I know I have laughed, and I know I have wept,
I know every promise I've broken or kept.
But knowing's a shadow, a wraith of a thing,
Without any pulse or the warmth it should bring.
Where does the protection go far past the line?
When stories are hollow and nothing is mine.
The armour takes everything, light and the dark,
And leaves you with a life that is empty and stark.
