I wonder what it might be like
To leave my body,
Comfortable and vacant,
On a pillow of moss in the sun drenched woods

Where that body could just be
And I could go out into the world, free of her constraints:
Free of the split on its chapped lower lip, the sinews of its neck,
the swell of its chest and the delicate curve of its hip

If I could escape from
the length of its legs
The darting hungriness in its pale, dark-lined eyes
The dip of its spine and the dimples of its back

To be out in the world without that body
And instead to be made of my words,
my intuition and my taste for chocolate peanut butter cups
My stubbornness that veils sensitivity

To let go of the looking
and be known for my ability to put children at ease
my insatiable curiosity and my fear of stillness,
my habit of talking too much and too loudly

I wonder what it might be like to not be a body

But I suppose it’s also nice to be seen
As a person, a woman, a human being
A creature of flesh and need and touch
With mannerisms and body language

A thing that dances, often wildly, and talks with her hands
That can chase and run and tiptoe up carpeted stairs
That makes loves and breaks things sometimes
Often accidentally, sometimes on purpose

Perhaps they’re too deeply intertwined,
Too much the same for me to leave her behind
On that patch of moss in the sun drenched woods.
But it might be nice, just for a while.

By Emma L. Castleberry