Dissociation Poem by JAE JAE

Dissociation.

This conversation
teeters on the tight rope between denial
and exaggeration,
and in the middle obscures truth
at the very blank
where I’d expect it.

Your arms around thin white throats. Snapping. Still.
Your hand raised in the kitchen.
It gets blurrier.
She’s screaming your name—
who is she defending?
That boy, wild-eyed, grabbing at wrists and hair
on end; I struggle but am free.
A switch flipped off in both your eyes,
That loud, pregnant vacancy saying
I
am
not
home.
I am tantrumming and tormenting and troubled by
those neck
veins
throbbing—unpredictable consistency.

-Where did the rest go? –

A cavity, the only sharp focus
of reality.
You gave me life
but took those years, gone
trotting through the blank fog
where someone else was living it.

8.25.11