Hypothesis

What if it’s true: that as you walk, another is walking within you, perfectly coterminous with your own walking? What if it’s true that as you sit, another sits within, weathering you, like the coal inside the ember? I don’t like to think that our bodies are mere vessels — or vassals — but what if they were? It could explain these odd, apparently random urges to hold & be held, or to lose oneself through concentration: the not-me within wants to reach the not-me without. Sounds plausible, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s how a finger continues to itch after the amputation of the arm, & why, as we slowly tighten around our cores, strands of white begin to appear on our heads, an extra light glimmers behind the eyes, & a network of cracks under the skin begins to offer glimpses of an inner blue: heaven is within, just as the mystics always said! True or not, it’s enough to make me think about counting every last breath.