To: The Body

From: I, the mind

I’m obsessing over you, then peeling away from and adhering back onto the girl in my basement. Hiding down there, the clutches of shame cage that delicate, vulnerable girl with needs, who is fearful & hiding. I won’t let her out.

I’m obsessing over you again at work, in my dimly lit office of books and misc. computer parts, sifting through Internet information on how to fix you, perfect you. Move this way. Eat this stuff...don’t eat that…when I “should” be in control of you already. “Should” be making a meaningful contribution to this world.

Instead the I that is me stands above you, looking down the staircase, omniscient. Microscopic things I see in telescopic panorama. Have wondered: are you me? You’re impermanent so…am I, too? I.

You aren’t me, cowering paper doll body. I had to drag you, day after day, out onto the Red Rocket to ride. 2 miles. Then 17. Then 37. Your limbs & eyes & joints wept & throbbed. Remember the time in cold rain, chest pumping endorphins & happy hardcore at the beginning of a perilous ride. Just you &…

I on that first winded mile around the indoor track, when you said your blood would start spurting out your throat if you persisted. I told you otherwise.

I lashed you forth on the cardio machines, precipitates of salty sweat caked up. You’d see the others around & I’d make you take note of them & their superiority at everything you ever tried to do.

You were easily maxed out so I coaxed you with promised rewards of wine & simple carbs. I’d shame you as I wrapped my brass knuckled hands around your throat & used quick, methodical jabs to the gut… for your own good.

I stopped caring about you at all, disowned you, but never stopped obsessing. Sold you off to men: for $$ & hot validation. At times, so fed up, I denied your existence. Just me, buoyed bodiless, no you here. I criticized every blemish, scar, alligator patch, stretch mark, lump, soft spot, & mocked the SoftSoul that lingers around, won’t follow my orders.

I beat & sliced up your face & belly & arms & legs ‘til bruised & blood dripping then dried & crusted for you to painfully scrub off with a rag. I murdered you, or tried to, with Daisy razor blades, dismantled carefully enough to keep the fingertips intact. I told you things that inspired you to bring the hammer down hard on your soft spots. I beat the vulnerability out of you, hardened you.

Because you were the source of cumbersome feelings & my job is pain management.

I wasn’t always so controlling & abusive: taught you to cook yourself new recipes, let you have piles of pancakes & peanut butter cookies. See how nice I was to you?

I’ve told you when & how to bandage yourself, to knead your own thrashed muscles, & I’ve given you some of the most intense pleasure you’ve ever felt. I’ve let you go unkempt, saying very little about it for months on end. 

Paper doll body, I’ve dreamed outfits to dressed you up in. I’ve torn your paper carcass in pieces, and drawn blueprints for a brand new one. I made a perfect mold and tried to cram you into it, but you never fit & you aren’t cooperative.

You’ve often been the center of my world. Focused on your flaws & features & whims & wants &

lately I obsess. Obsess. Obsess over you. What I can do with you & how it’ll change you, while you’re locked down in the basement & have to follow all my rules. 

I stay up here, dignified, so I don’t have to see your pathetic limitations. Doublethinking, my work is interrupted by the obsession yet I am detached from you.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve become you. I don’t know if I have complete control and I wonder who does, who’s on the floor above this one, looking down.