The Haze
It waved when I moved
So I ran from the ash haze
It never faltered
I turned to meet him and see
My shadow was tied to me
This is a poem about my dysphoria.
For me, dysphoria was a reality I didn’t want to meet, that I tried to run from for years.
It seemed like a looming threat, so I wouldn’t acknowledge it, a terrifying and confusing thing waiting to complicate my life that would follow me as far as I went.
Sometimes, it would grow smaller, I could fling myself into the schoolwork I was already behind in and prevent myself from even having time to see it.
I would try to “Cut it off,” by either convincing myself that dysphoria was something more extreme then what my silly experience was or for a time it would come out by attacking others’ identities, of which was really self directed, I guess trying to put myself back in line.
Anything to avoid questioning, to avoid complicating life.
No matter what I did, I found I could not out run it.
Even as I didn’t know fully what it was, I could not run from it.
Eventually I realized running was pointless.
So I turned around, looked around and looked at this strange feeling properly, and started trying to learn what it was.
Why I’ve felt so wrong since I was even a toddler.
Why I’m just so uncomfortable.
Because when I looked at my shadow, all I found it to be was my own form looking back at me.
And while I’m by nature always a little confused I’ll say;
“Addressed to you, hi
I mean to say "sorry" for
Lying all this time...
A whole new introduction.
Here we go, hello I am-”
-Cornelius Hecker, he/him
- A New Year’s Reintroduction - January 1, 2021
- Butterflies - April 22, 2020
One Response
I don’t even really know what a dilemma is. Where from if I only share my inner world with the books and birches. These are my friends and Mauz the cat is my buddy. I am not at all unworldly – I care about people. But I’ll never understand how they take care I got a Christmas present from my psychologist. I should stay the way I am, my communication skills don’t need therapy. Now I understand. During the pandemic, I found people in the virtual self-help group who speak my language. This is how friendships begin.
Tomi , living 33years in a Berlin Trailer-park and 57years somewhere in the Spektrum