When I was a child I could tell my nose from my fingertips, it all felt mechanical, and it wasn’t mine. It was my mother’s and my father’s, it was of my flesh unto itself, and I, a passive operator of this thing I could not steer. I put my legs in front of each other at different paces, and there they would sway to take me down streets, away from home, away from the place of I was made. No order, but chaos, no rest but heavy breath. The older I became, the more these arms and these legs became foreign. They grew into strange things, longer and longer. Separated from myself, I was. Attached to this space, or floating above. It was me and these legs. But we did not know each other’s names, nor did we understand why we were opposed. I thought it was weak, and it called me a bully. Me and this body- divorced entities. I wouldn’t feed it, and it would rebel. It would tire easily to welcome a violent turbulence of fits and illness. If it could, it’d run it’s legs far from me, but I kept it’s veins and all of it’s blood, so it stayed put. It took me two decades to breathe at it’s pace, the catch the rhythm of a pulse, to trace the lines of it’s curves. Whether the nerves surrendered, or died- they left no residue but a quiet mind. Whatever thing I am, I no longer busy myself with the dream of flight, or a desire to shed and shed. And now, these days, we walk together, at the same pace. And we are in love.
