I used to stare at the sun in my head for hours on end,

just sit on the floor in my bedroom and disassociate.

Moment by moment, I’d let the awareness of my body

become like a smear of paint drawn across a canvas

faster than you could turn a light on. Neighborly voices

withdrew into the background noise made by cars

driving by our trailer at 14 Americana Drive, and the

very room I was disappearing in blurred into a grey

light that could have been anything. I didn’t want to

be in the world so badly, I practiced removing myself

from it the way you remove a stubborn sliver from a

palm. Now, I know what you are thinking. Didn’t that make

it hard for me to love anybody and be present and make

friends and be happy, and yes it did. But who hasn’t

wanted to escape a bad situation so deeply the mind

had to go somewhere else for a while, unfolding roads

that hours later seem like they were just driven onto?

The raw brownie batter of the unconscious bubbles

over and forgets everything when it has to take care

of you, and when it knows no one else can. It’s why

now, when I feel an urge to space out and become a

passing sound or a streak of light behind some trees,

I let my consciousness drift through walls and fences

until it’s ready to come back to my body again. I honor

my unconscious by praying to it and thanking it for

taking care of me all those years I couldn’t stand to be

in the everyday world and just needed to travel a lot.