After a Writing Workshop About the Body

This is not my body. Not the one that used to tell everything to anyone— I mean everything, like I thought it might get me somewhere closer to known. I sat in a circle today, some kind of writing thing— you know the type. Lots of deep breathing and soft lighting. Someone cried reading what they wrote in the first eight minutes and I— well, I flinched. Not because it wasn’t honest, but because it was. Too honest, maybe. Or just familiar. I used to be like that— all exposure and no shape. Just bleeding out in lowercase. And I caught myself thinking, don’t do it— as if I could save her from what happens when the adrenaline wears off and all you’re left with is the echo of your revelation. But maybe she won’t feel that. Maybe she’ll never know what I mean. And maybe I’m not better now— just quieter. Anyway. This is not my body. Not anymore. But I still feel it sometimes, rattling the old pipes.