Waking Memory

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.