It was just a thought.

I've been having these weird outer-body experiences when Gavin and I argue. It's so bizarre because I haven't had these in a long time. Not since I lived with my mom. It didn't used to be something that just happened to me; I forced it to happen. It was so hard to do but as it happens with most things one does habitually, it became easier and easier to do until it finally just- kicked in when my mom and I would argue. She always said the most hurtful things, most I told tell myself she didn't really mean, when she was angry and so to- shield myself from it, I would make myself separate myself from- myself. It's difficult to explain. Basically it's like this: after every argument with her ended, I hated the way I felt. In reality, I hated who I was. She said things that really made a person hate themselves. It was so easy for her to do and she was so successful in tearing me apart because she was the person who knew me the best. Inside and out. She knew where I hurt and where I was weak. As my mother she should have guarded my soft, child-like spots, but instead, she used her tongue as the dagger to puncture the skin of my underbelly. I couldn't make her stop saying the things she said, but I could make myself not feel it. So when she would start, I took a deep breath and when I exhaled, a chill would take over my whole body, goose-pimpling my flesh. And I was gone. Looking at the fight from the safety of somewhere deep inside my head. My mouth on autopilot responded with words I didn't think. I stared her straight in the eye through the whole thing and, though she was peering through what they say is the doorway to your inner being, she didn't see the shiny, robot eyes peering back at her--