MISSING_PIECE from DIS-ASSOCIATION by Renée Radix

this features a poem i wrote about recovering memories of my very early (~2 years old) experiences of CSA. it's very much written with the lens of my DID in mind, engaging with the experience of a fragmented sense of self and past.

extreme traumatic experiences, even from the very distant past, will always have an impact on us even if you can never fully recover the memory (which is typical for CSA). similarly if you lose a piece to a jigsaw puzzle and are able to finish the rest of the puzzle you still have that missing piece and it’s not something you can make irrelevant to the rest of the puzzle. the surroundings and vague shape can give you an idea of what’s in there but you’ll never know for sure what's missing. as the poem says, we have to live with it, but can find a way to make something beautiful out of it if we're able to face it.

Renée (she/her) is an electroacoustic musician currently based in Portland, Oregon. Her solo music consists of densely layered woodwinds and electronics, engaging with themes such as living with trauma, dissociation and the impact of the world on the transfeminine body. She draws inspiration from stories of trans resistance, grief rituals, free jazz, the natural world, and industrial machinery.