Dissociation

I sit with another version

of myself eating this apple

and this apple. I see

myself bite, chew,

and swallow as I bite,

chew, and swallow. I cannot

read me, my other face

consumed in eating this apple.

In my sinus there is a buzzing

like a dying fluorescent light

that drowns this apple I’m eating.

I cannot tell if this other me

hears it, if I see me

seeing me chewing and lost.

I would be fine if I stayed confined

to this, to sitting and eating.

I grow concerned when I see me

on the train and getting

off at the wrong stop, leaving me

bewildered in the tunnel. Worried

when I see myself driving my car

and veering it into traffic. Alarmed

at the beach when I watch me

walk into the water calm with

stones in my pockets when there

are no stones in my pockets.

Curious when I sit and write

when I’ve had no pen in hand in weeks.

And every time I try to ask me

I’m gone before I get there.