“Dumb Little Body”
by Emily Ghazal
I wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder.
Please Being,
make me stop all of this thought.
Please Being,
hold me down and stuff my eyes with cotton, I do not want to allow myself my sight.
Please Being,
take me to the cellar and screw corks into my ears, I cannot allow myself my hearing.
Please Being,
cut my hands off at the wrists with the knife I keep at my bedside, I should not allow myself to feel.
Please Being,
burn my tongue off on your stove, I do not want to allow myself to voice my thoughts.
Please Being,
my senses do nothing more than paralyze this dumb,
little body,
of mine.
I wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder
and wonder.
I stand still.
Cars and bikes and pedestrians and dogs and birds and leaves and winds pass me by.
I stand still.
I wonder.
I wonder so long which step to take,
standing still, I wonder.
My feet sink into the concrete, fossilized in place.
My calves and knees stiffen, locked in their positions; wooden table legs.
My thighs and hips begin to shrivel, dried up, untouched and unloved.
My stomach swallows itself inward towards my spine, a cave of skin below my ribs.
My heart, urging to climb out of my chest, desperate to leave my frozen body,
beats,
and beats
and beats
and beats.
Harder and louder, trying to break away through my flesh.
I stand still.
My fingernails grow down to my toes.
My hair thins and grays.
My eyes have sunken back into my skull,
I cannot see.
I stand still.
“Which step should I take?” I ask, standing still.
If,
Or,
Maybe,
And,
But,
Being,
I cannot stand in just one place, I wonder of all the other places I could set my soles upon.
Being,
my heart has been replaced as often as my eyelashes have fallen.
I run.
I run back and forth.
I pass cars and bikes and pedestrians and dogs and birds and leaves and winds.
I run.
My mind is spread all over the road, soft gooey bits and pieces covered in gravel, stuck in drains.
My fingers grow long and thin, I touch everything the sun can too.
My mouth speaks all the words my tongue knows, all at once.
My body is elastic, it blankets itself over everything my eyes can see.
I swallow whole.
I nibble and taste and chew and devour and digest.
I am starving.
I run back and forth, one side to the other.
You cannot catch me, you cannot make me stand still.
Being,
I refuse to choose.
I have chosen this life in purgatory.
In hell,
and in heaven.
I wonder of all the things I can not choose, I wonder of all the places that I’ve wandered off too.
And as I’ve stood here for so long, I’ve forgotten what I was wondering about.
I’ve run back and forth so many times, I’ve forgotten if I was running towards or away from you.