I wake up inside this silly life. I’m trapped inside this body. All of my memories disappear like a dream I can’t quite grab. The place is new. If you’ve ever fainted and you didn’t know who you were or where you were, it feels like that. Fear you can’t get away from. The fear of not knowing who you are.

This body, this body that isn’t mine, comes with memories. They overwhelm me. The tongue has tastes that I don’t recognize. The body has addictions that aren’t mine. This isn’t the side of the bed that I sleep on, is it? I can’t remember. These aren’t my slippers, are they? Not my feet either. Not my legs. Not my body.

Everything is foreign. Whose life is this? But my life, my old life, has filled in and smoothed over, like a shoe pulled out of a mud puddle. There are no traces of what I was.

I get up and move around in this new space. This stuff on the wall. Are these mine? Is this my taste? Is this what I like? I find the bathroom. Is this my body? Is this what I look like? What life have I led that deserves this face? I try to examine my memories. Was that me? Did I do that? I look at my hands. They are not familiar. What have I done with these hands? I look at my feet. Where have these feet taken me?

My mouth, my stomach wants food I didn’t know I liked. My heart, or whatever, wants things I didn’t know I wanted. This life will do, I guess. It’s as preposterous and as sensible as anybody else’s. And I forget who I might have been yesterday and where it was that I might have lain my head down last night.

SS