There is a certain sense of the word “body” that seems strange.
Is a body not a vessel? Is it not a frame, designed to protect the inner gears of what keeps you alive? Skin, bone, muscle, hair… It all makes sense— all has a purpose, a reason to wrap their arms around the beating and churning masses of red within.
“Body” means you have somewhere to stay. It means that all your thoughts, all your desires and dreams, all you could ever have touched upon with the tendrils of your soul, can be stored somewhere. “Body” means that you belong, a physical confirmation of your existence and your being in a world where everything seems lost and separated.
So to my understanding, a body is a lovely preservation. I am within my body, in a sense. Not the figure that everyone sees when they turn my way, but rather… If I had to look for my mind, I believe that I would find it somewhere within the perfectly casted mold I call my home.
It is a simple word. “Body”. Body, body, body.
“Body” also means permanence. A safe kind of permanence that lasts while you breathe. It means comfort in the skin of your roof, peering out into the world to seek out all the elegance and beauty it can offer. A pond of your mind that you can float senselessly, endlessly, timelessly in. A bottomless stretch of sand that reflects the softest rays of sun.
I want to be in my body. I want to stay, for it is warm. I pray that I stay forever, for as long as forever means on this earth.
Yet there is… a pull. Something has latched onto my mind, and threatens to rip from outside. It is all around me, engulfing, suffocating, shielding me from the world in a way that makes me feel more in danger than I have ever been in. It tugs, and the more I resist, the more it becomes unbearable like a war I can not win. It is stronger than I am, and for all the rules of the physical world, does this not mean that it is capable of ripping me right out of my body?
No, no. I have misspoken. It is less of an outside force than it is an inside one. Here I am, believing that it is a siege from someone beyond the walls of my safe body, foolishly resisting as I run in the other direction. The blood that drains from my skin is dreadful when it dawns upon me that this thing had never been pulling— it had always been pushing. From the inside out.
Whatever is threatening to drive my mind away, it is within the confines of my body. And what terror could be more than the realization that you have always been fleeing in the wrong direction, towards what you refuse to face?
The tethers snap and break, and I am bursting from my vessel of skin and bone. It is a much harder battle to win when there is no footing for you. When you are struggling to stay standing. When the ground moves too fast for you to get back up. My feet slip and slide in the water as the walls push me further out. My nails have been uprooted, and I no longer recognize my face in the reflection of the waves. Still, I claw at the tunnels of light that reach for me, and I call out in a voice that frightens my ears.
My chest is a cage, and its bony bars cannot hold. From where my heart thumps in my gentle ribcage, I am going to be splintered. I must break free, I don’t want to break free. I must leave, I don’t want to leave. Let me stay, let me stay, or let me go, and let me be rid of this pain! There is fire in my head, and the ropes pulling each way wrap around my soul so tight I cannot breathe. They dig into what’s left of my skin, and I wonder if a hole will be left in my body where I have been chased and exiled.
It is no longer quiet, it is no longer peaceful. The waters turn murky, and I close my eyes to succumb to the inevitable sense of being trapped that will cut me up until I am no longer who I am.
Bones are breaking, skin is stretching taut. I am surfacing forcefully, afraid to break the surface of the water for fear that I may find no oxygen there.
Alone, I am holding a flag that is tattered and ripped. There will be no victory for an army that is one man strong. There will be no home to return to, and no shelter to take. Am I to go, or am I to be saved? Body no longer means anything but a house that I do not know if I am allowed to stay in. With all my heart, I wish to grow old here. With all that I am, I hang on with the last of my strength and pray that the bars of my chest will hold on to this desperate soul.
So I pray. I pray that I won’t be alone. I pray that these fears can be laid to rest. I pray to go back to where I once was, melting into a drop of dew amidst a quietly chattering forest. Let me feel like I’m home again. Let me no longer be a prisoner in my own heart. If I should go, let me go. If I should stay, I pray that I may.
Fog clears and I am again running. From what I have yet to see. But this is my body. And it would be too cruel for me to surrender without a proper slash of teeth.
This is my body, this is my home. So tell me the definition of the word “body”, and I may find a way to save all of us within this house.