Connecting to Power

I haven’t written a poem in years; I almost felt like I’d forgotten how.

Tonight, I proved myself wrong.

Earlier this evening, I was sitting around, enjoying the soft quiet, when this random line floated through my mind:

“It’s so easy to dissociate in a clean room.”

And then, of course, I could feel the dissociation creep in like a caterpillar inching up my arm.

At that moment, when I feared dissociation would waterboard me, my ears perked up and latched onto the serene hum of my external hard drive.

I let it tether me back to reality.

After ensuring that I was grounded, I thought about that quick exchange and the following poem flowed out:

***

It’s so easy to drift—
to stagger—towards dissociation
like a drunk collapsing in the middle of a war zone;
destruction and chaos always two steps ahead or three behind.

And yet,
the hum of my 1TB external hard drive
gleaning power from its source—my laptop—
becomes a shelter from bombshell ghosts,
a periodic, low-range rumble that proves validity, authenticates presence.