The body can convey a marvelous snapshot of outward circumstance.
All the jumbled incoming information from the world,
Sorted through within us via entry our fingertips,
Our wandering eyes, our fiery nostrils, perky ears, and flirty tongues.
Whole experiences broken down, and their pieces subtly absorbed,
So that they can be reassembled in a space within our minds,
Or is it a place above our minds?

Nevertheless, the pieces sort themselves into pictures,
That come together frame by frame to form “whole experiences,”
Our own little movies in real time.
What’s more, I can
Feel
Everything

Indeed, the so-called cinema of my life.
I wouldn’t dare to call myself the main character,
For I know that much of life occurs in the third person perspective.
This life won’t allow you to forget that there are others living it with you,
So sometimes I play the side character in the background of other’s
Achievements, heartbreaks, and upgrades.

However, unlike in the movies,
The personhood of the side character doesn’t just cease to exist
In the luminous gleam of the person who’s more saturated in life’s thrills.
In certain moments, I too feel the limelight,
Like an internal compass directing my attention.
It’s not something I can mask either,
For the body often knows before I do.

Then, suddenly I’m met with the reality of the world outside
And the world inside of me.
And as often as they work in harmony,
They also sometimes don’t agree.

And as often as they work in harmony:

Yeah, the sweets of life are as tasty to the eyes
As they are to the tongue.
And every vertebrae in my spine moves
In a consecutive, synchronist fashion,
Conveying an embodiment of satisfaction.

I beg: share this masterpiece with me.
Touch me there on the small of my back,
And let your arms embrace me
I start to feel my body go slack, my heart beats with ease
And…man

Am I pulling you closer or are you pulling me?
Then, my nose starts to reach back to the top of my forehead
And I’m smiling into the smell of an atmosphere created by me and you.
The pads of my toes melt into the ground,
And my heels lift me up into an otherworldly celebration of body and soul.

I fall through ephemeral moment into lasting experience,
Except it feels less like a terrifying descent
And more like an ongoing embrace.

White clouds with the softness of giggles caress me.
Their delicate pecks graze the concave between my hips and just beneath my bust.
With the invincibility of water and the tenderness of flower petals,
They trace the curve in my legs, spine, and neck.
On the surface, my skin glistens in synchrony with the beat of a cinematic climax.

The comfortable fall to a jagged top with a dangerous descent
Prickles the sensitive places on my skin.
But, it’s the strangest thing:
because once it starts, I’ve no idea where and how it began
I have no idea what exactly it is I’m experiencing.
I’m familiar with this sensation though,
This feeling of falling uncontrollably.

Instantly, I’ve violently tumbled out of a scene of fantastical triumph,
Pictured in the perfectly entwined bodies of mind and soul,
And the social and intrapersonal,

And I’ve left behind my tittering clouds
As I crash through a barrier that escapes my grasp,
But it’s as cold as the silence after a well considered thought,
And it suffocates like my doubts that resurface uninvitedly.
It wrecks my body.

I’ve been here before.
I swear I’ve been here before.
And yet, my heart beats ferociously,
Banging against the restrictions of my ribcage
With the rhythm of a runner trying to escape from me.

Then my breath is taken captive and proceeds
Out of sync with the nervous shaking of my leg.
Suddenly, I’m too big and I’m taking up too much space.
A blood red spot light highlighting the individual performances of my limbs
Settles upon me, and suddenly I’m not a complete person.

I’m in pieces.

My body is wrecked, but I’m here.
Safely hidden behind this veil of courtesy,
But I’m here.
Behind this watery and impenetrable wall.
But I’m here.

And they are there.

Apology teases my lips
As the vile unseemingly rises up my throat,
My throat which burns like the fire that blazes on
Hot from the lies that keep our interpersonal relationships alive.

I taste the bitter heaviness of truth and blatant discomfort on my tongue,
But my lips are only stained with the sweet exchanges
Lacking the audacity to inconvenience and stir up the formalities of life.

The tint on my lips washes over the rest of my body.
It fills my ears to where I can’t hear actual words,
But can only fill in the sentences with conventional guesses.
My chest stains blue as I’m so desperately holding back the breath
I wish to set free
Though I fear my thoughts will chase the wind.

The stiffness in the air carries over into the stiffness of my red arms and fingers,
And oh, how my tailbone extends into the ground
As if I can root myself in this moment
But also fade into the background as the limelight wishfully gets smaller and smaller.

Momentarily, I’ve convinced myself that I can overcome this internal compass,
If I can pour myself out, unbeknownst to the world,
Into a box that keeps the heaviness off my tongue and neatly in the shadows,
So that I can then be filled with the plot lines of those around me.

I tame this body and its desire to escape,
And I sync my rebellious body to the experience at hand.

But, I mess up somewhere in the process of restraint.

The body often knows before I do.

And on the off chance,
Someone casts a set of flash-lit eyes to that shaking leg of mine.
And the words catapult like a life raft in the deep end:
“Are you okay?”

Body, STOP!!
Why did you betray me?

Then, suddenly I’m met with the reality of the world outside
And the world inside of me.
And as often as they work in harmony,
They also sometimes don’t agree.

They sometimes don’t agree,
But I also can force them to be
Because I’m too scared to make them stand feet to feet,
And therefore be face to face with the truth and weakness inside of me.

Am I okay?
Well, I guess sometimes I just have to be.
After all, life isn’t actually a movie,
And I can’t just skip to the next scene.
So, isn’t it better to skip the bothersome irregularities
In order to stick to social routines?

Well, I certainly thought my body would agree.
But, unfortunately my body has betrayed me.
And it has decided to instead push me toward honesty.