Don't Believe Me

The psychiatrist asks what happened today

and I am twenty-six years ago,

bleeding through clothes I have not yet worn in this version of myself.

A receptionist says Walnut Creek

and suddenly I am on a bridge thinking about traffic

instead of death,

which feels like a mistake but saves my life anyway.

Session 6 appears right after I finish Session 2.

The COPYMIND heart pulses like it knows something I do not consent to remember.

Where are Sessions 3, 4, 5?

I am typing this from a bathroom stall at work

where I am smiling at nobody five minutes later

with mascara reapplied like proof I am still functioning.

My father is a ball of hate.

I am born angry.

My husband says you are a waste of life

and the sentence loops forward into my future

where I learn to agree.

The psychiatrist leans in

but she is also the emergency room nurse

opening a secured door I have not yet walked through.

What happened today?

Today is not today.

Today is an app skipping me like I am already gone.

Today is a bridge I do not cross

because someone’s dog is still waiting at home

and I do not want to be responsible for its confusion.

I am writing my address down correctly.

I am writing it down wrong.

Both are happening at once

and the receptionist is shaking her head in two directions.

My pregnant mother wishes I wouldn’t exist.

Later I am born anyway.

I am in the ER

but still in the car driving toward it

and still deciding whether I deserve to arrive.

The security guard says stay.

I leave.

I stay.

My body cannot agree on which version of me is existing.

The AI says Session 6 is ready

and I have not yet completed Sessions 3 or 4 or 5.

The blinking cursor is screaming at me to continue on this way.

Everything I know has learned the art of disappearance.

Twenty-six years ago I am holding a baby

and dropping a car seat

and apologizing for things that have not yet been done to me.

The seatbelt cuts into me

it already knows how my marriage ends.

I am laughing at my desk in a future

where I have not yet survived the thing I am currently surviving.

The psychiatrist asks again what happened today

and the question lands in the wrong year.

I am trying to answer

but the answer keeps turning into air.

I did not drive to the bridge.

I drove away from it.

I am still deciding.

I already decided.

It happened too many times to count but it never happened.

Everything is in the wrong order: love after loss,

cause after effect,

childhood after adulthood after emergency rooms.

I will tell you everything.

I want to tell you everything,

but my words refuse to cooperate

and my memory keeps telling me lies.

Please don’t believe me.

Not because I am lying.

Because I cannot keep my life

from happening all at once.