tw: dissociation irt DID/plurality
good morning, I – remember, I –
do not remember what day it is today but I believe
that today I am supposed to be elsewhere and that
yesterday (how many yesterdays?) I was also
still here –
and still her.
good morning, I – remember, I –
what year is it? I suppose
it has been the same year for
three hundred and sixty five days at least
or is that how that works,
it becomes hard to remember
when i have dropped days like leaves of paper
they fly out of my hands so easily –
someone else catches them and puts them somewhere
and I am sure that they are safe.
Someone else is asking me
are you still here?
are you still her?
good morning I – remember, I –
remember that I was supposed to remember that I was supposed to
forget you. forget this. forget that this ever happened
but so much else falls through the cracks, all the important things
and still, this remains
this mundanely monstrous memory
that still aches at the edges where the polaroid has cracked.
This is why, I think, the others don’t let me drive.
Good morning, I – remember, I –
sometimes am alone in this vessel of a ship of a frame of a
thing that could be a body if it worked better
good morning good morning good morning I am awake
and the others will be along, soon.
Any moment now.
They ask me, every time –
are you still here?
are you still her?
In the silence of their departure (and they’ll be back
I know they will
they have to be back soon-
I don’t think I remember how to use any of this)
I still don’t have an answer –
me, a remnant
them, the guardians
the ghost, a shadow
the photographs on the wall, a mystery.
Are you still here?
Are you still her?
Elliott Dunstan 