I Don’t Live in My Body
I don’t live in my body, I live in my brain. There’s a ladder that goes up from my neck leading to my brain.
I climb the ladder, step over the threshold and into my home. It has many rooms, each set up for a different mood.
My body is an alien machine. Someone handed me the reins to it without the manual, and I try to make it work the best I can. It lurches and stalls and makes scary sounds. I try, get tired, and run away home where everything is familiar and cozy.
I store my favorite thoughts and memories and snapshots there. Walls and walls of filing cabinets filled with neatly labeled essays about things that can only be felt, not named.
I still name them, define them, theorize about them, and then put away my report. I can read them when I want to understand about living in that alien machine.
I clutch my little notes and climb down to the driver’s seat from time to time to test it out.
Sometimes my experiments work and the machine glides, making a soft hum that does something pleasant to me. The feeling is alien so I think about it. I must remember it so I can go back home in the evening, sit in my favorite spot, think about the feeling and write a report on it.
One day, as I was working on it, the machine broke. It faltered and fell with a loud sound. I felt the reverberations traveling up the machine, up the ladder, and all the way to my home, carrying with it a cord that melted through the walls.
Scared, I fled and sat hunched in the corner. I couldn’t drown out the noise even in the safe, soft darkness of my home. I covered my ears but I could feel the currents permeating from the walls and floor and making their way inside me.
It hurt and I screamed till I couldn’t breathe. I gasped for air and came to a stop. What was this searing feeling inside me? I wanted to wash it off me. I wanted to run as fast and as far as I could but there was nowhere to go. I wanted to bang on the windows but I knew nobody could come. This was my home and there was nowhere I could go without it. I closed my eyes and breathed with it. I stopped fighting and just let it burn through my skin. It dialled down to a pleasant warmth.
When I opened my eyes it was morning. I ventured out and down to the machine. I ran my fingers over the corners and curves, now strangely familiar, pulsating with the same pleasant warmth.
Paired Listening
From the Five Part Body Playlist
