Overcome with the feeling that, like a dream, the absurdity of what I’ve gone through here will reveal itself more and more over time — 

Like a dream, the logic makes sense — at least a little — before it ends. But then, when you come to, and leave that world, it all seems absolutely ridiculous, and you wonder how you could have even fallen for everything in there making even the slightest bit of sense.

I am overcome with the feeling that leaving home will be the same. 

I am overcome with the suspicion and hunch too that, once I am gone, and I… come to, away from these sleepers, stumbling around half-awake, instinctual animals, rolling around in their own piss and shit, hurling it at anyone who might pass by… that it will become all the more clear how genuinely fucking absurd it all was. 

I am overcome with the feeling that my dissociative states are about the inability to make sense of what ever went on and happened, because there was no sense to be found… dissociation is the brain saying “I give up,” because what is being witnessed is incomprehensible, like the stupor one might find themself in when seeing two of another culture having a conversation in a language they cannot comprehend… soon enough, the unintelligible sounds blend into each other, and one enters a daze, a daydreaming state, right when the brain realizes it has not the tools to make sense of what is transpiring before them…

My home life was like this exactly, like an alien from another world coming to be a part of chaos and madness — in retrospect, humorous insanity, really — and dissociating from what they know to be true, to divorce themself from their expectations of what rhythms any being should adhere to, what they should dance along to, 

Letting go of one’s sense of timing, instead being grabbed by the collar and yanked, ripping that precious fabric of yours, and pulled into a dance that made no sense, a dance without harmony, a dance where elbows were thrown and black eyes were dealt freely, a dance that went along to no music, a dance that moved in cycles, in circles, without creativity, only with monotony — 

And I looked at those dancers… I sat in the middle instead, a wide-eyed youth in a stupor, and I aged there. As they cycled around me, I forgot about a world beyond that circle, I forgot that there were other dances to be discovered. I sat there, and I watched those pathetic toy soldiers move and age, and I wondered when they would grow tired. I wondered if they would ever get the hint that they could choose to move their bodies in alternate rhythms, I wondered if they knew that they didn’t have to take the hand of the one next to them, and either pull them or get pulled by them, that they didn’t have to bump shoulder to shoulder and get jostled into step by their partner, I wondered if they knew that they would live their entire life doing a single move, I wondered if they knew that when that sacred force came to them at the end, to remove them from the dance against their will, that they would finally get a chance to view, before they go, the other dancers who surrounded, that they would realize they… missed out on other parties going on all around them, parties that were joyful, parties where people could dance as they please, parties where your partner wouldn’t force you to move as they needed you to move, but rather praised you as you moved as you desired, parties that were fueled not by miseries, the flame in the center being not fear, but to be fueled by gratitude, the flame at the center being loving creativity — I wondered if they knew that as they perished, when that sacred master known as Death, the great transitioner, our greatest, most veiled friend, that they would see all that they could have done before he came for the reaping, and I wondered if they would regret it. I even wondered if they knew that I was trying to teach them new dances as they lived, and I wondered if they would realize that each time I sought to do so, each time I sought to save them from their Ferris wheel of terror, they held on tightly to what they knew, and even sought to drag me down with them. When we clasped hands, I sought to lift them up, but they sought to drag me down. I wondered if they would… feel remorse? I wondered if they would realize the gravity of their blunder, I wondered if they would realize that not only did they miss out on dances, but someone within their circle begged them to look around at anywhere but before them, and I wondered if they would feel that pinching sense of agony when they realized their mistake. 

I wonder. I wonder. I wonder. But, for now, it is not my responsibility anymore, for just as I do not wish for them to tell me how to dance, I may not do the same. I will leave. I will leave and join other circles with like-minded acrobats, gymnasts, and contortionists, I will go and join those who move like water, and not like stone. 

I will leave this dream, and leave this ugly dance, and I will discover what lies beyond