Project Paper Birds

The Poem Explained

Run & Hide! is a poem about depersonalization I wrote back in 2020. “The box” is the verbiage I used to describe the ‘hidden’ trauma in my head, because that’s exactly what it felt like. I knew it was there, I knew the things attached to it, but I didn’t know fully what was inside. A lot of my sessions that fall included talking about “it” until I’d disassociate or have a flashback. Thursday nights were always the hardest, because that was the day my body would relive everything over and over again.

When I talked about it, it felt like my being retreated into itself, and I would rapidly ‘leave’, becoming what felt—and in my head looked like—a shell of myself: a blank canvas of a person who’s only history and attribute is the trauma, whatever that trauma was. What was scarier, was not knowing when I’d feel “in reality” or “like myself” again. It was like being untethered from the Earth and not knowing if your feet would ever touch the ground again. At times, even my physical senses were dulled.

I wanted to share because I feel like this piece (and this explanation) paints a good picture of what disassociation can feel like at times.