Young Writers Society

The doors swing shut behind me, and I think: I’m here, I’m here.

I am desperately trying to rediscover whatever silken thread fought to 
keep my soul tethered to this dimension’s substantial reality.

I’m here, I’m here.

I allow my eyes to slowly refocus on the clay giants that loom out of the dust, eating and spitting out unsuspecting passers-by. Their double-glazed eyes watch me from the unreachable clouds. They are hostile. I drop my eyes to the more reassuring ground.

I’m here, I’m here.

The cement tiles roll easily beneath my feet, gliding. My vision re-sharpens. I realise the gaps between the slabs are widening: stretching and gaping, until they are ready to swallow me into their dank recesses. I blink away my focus and allow my pupils to haze over, until the outlook is bland and undifferentiated.

I’m here, I’m here.

Instead, i turn inwards and will my mind to wander outwards- eyes closed- and to consider its place in existence: How small we are. How big reality is. My breath halts. Some many-legged creature scratches at my throat, down-down to my heart, where it buries itself, shimmies slightly, and breathes its greyness into my veins.

I’m here. Please let me be here.

I’m acutely aware of the ground beneath me, slamming back into the balls of my feet, threatening, unwelcoming. I watch myself grow physically shorter, meeker, scared.

I’m here, I-

…

I’m not here. I am in the air. I am dispersed throughout the atmosphere: 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen and 1% me: 1% my sprit. 1% my essence.

Parts of me are spread across the planet. I am dribbled in my baby sister’s cornflakes, I am seeping from the bathroom drains. I flow relentlessly from my teacher’s pens and my parent’s mouths, an insistent stream of failures, dissapointments and broken expectations.

I am trapped behind the sofa, a forgotten penny, and I am resting between the rafters in the attic. a small part of me is locked into the eyes of those I love and those who could never love me back.

I wish I could be here. I wish so very, very much that I could be here- rooted to the ground, suspended in amongst humanity, able to comply with the rules of the natural universe. But I am not here. I have never been here. I can remember no time at which I had all of the pieces to my puzzle. No point that came before my strings were cut and I drifted into the transient abyss.

I can remember no ‘before’, when I was together, substantial. And If I can remember no ‘before’, how can there possibly be an ‘after’?

This is pretty profound. You describe an unpleasant state of mind so poetically and specifically, yet still preserve the drifting, homeless vibe.

From the beginning, when you go in a door, it feels very natural in flow, yet surreal in tone. This "I'm here"; I guess thats the speaker reassuring herself. The tone is maintained throughout the piece--surreal, and finally, a giving up with the rhetorical question you close with. I really like it.

Ah, now I've read the spoiler. Even though it is more of a self-reassurance for a piece, it is of equal literary value. This peice means something to me too because I've had depersonalization myself. It really is that awful feeling you disclose. You've done well, describing it, for sure. I hope your doesn't go on for long.

-Voxina