imagine thinking that you aren’t your body, that it’s some meat cage you pilot around. i haven’t believed in that for decades now, it’s a luxury i never seem to have wanted to afford. anyway mine has been through the wars as they say, had a real rough paper round so now i just want to give it every good thing for its delight, but with the air of someone luring out some wild thing from under a porch or shed where it has crawled to hiss and heal.

this is my body, the priests would say and bells would chime. here’s mine, compact someone said once. like a race car, someone else said and i bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing so as not to be ungenerous. whatever it looks like from the outside i am completely inside it, with no separation or border. the country of my body, it’s a fact, like the fact of a stone, or a tree, insists on its is-ness whatever anyone else thinks.

does this body want to lie down on the floor in a hot dark room and sweat, where other bodies also lie? does it want a grilled peach? let this body have whatever it wants in all abundance.

does the body want a little treat? of course it does, yes, a little treat for the body: who’s a good girl, who’s a clever girl?

me.