Start laying on your backs, your feet comfortably apart – heels in, toes out, and your arms along the sides of your bodies, palms facing the stars. Allow your fingers to curl naturally. Breathe. We will begin the practice by turning your attention inwards. What is inside – it is the muscles that get you going, the ones that you give a hard time every day. Standing upright requires your strong back muscles, so breathe into them as a gentle thank you. Take a long inhale and feel the air rise, caressing the bottom of your spine and slowly making its way up to the nape of your neck, to the point where your spine meets your head. Slow exhale out to give your body a scan down from where we were. Continue this way and notice the parts where tension is brewing, and allow them to relax. Breathe in and out this way, from your core, all the way up to your skull - the thing that inspires you. The thing that inspires you to be compassionate, to nourish your body with the energy and movement that it needs, and nothing too much. The thing that inspires you to be calm, and in control of your limbs, the ability of them – your limbs. They could move so gently, so flexibly, and so strong. It is all you. Inside you is also a seesaw between logic and emotion, between calmness and calamity, between restrain and relieve, also known as balance. Also known as yoga.
BE PROUD OF YOURSELF -
APPRECIATE YOUR BODY FOR WHAT YOU’VE PUT IT THROUGH.
When I touch your face with my toes, my feet recoils.
When our tongues meet your eyes get so close to mine I think about dilating your pupils with the laser beams that come out of my forehead. You’d have to keep your eyelids open because your eyes would grow bigger and bigger and the world would be reflected on them, glimmering, pretty. You. You’re pretty.
So I kiss you anyways. With my eyes closed. Just how you like it.
For you, I resist the urge.
For you, I won’t bite the inside of your mouth and feast on the nectar.
For you, I won’t put a spider in your ear tonight.
Because you’ve done so much.
IT’S OKAY IF YOU FALL -
IT HAPPENS TO THE BEST OF US.
CASE STUDY: A WOMAN AT THE SEASHORE
I stand here breathing. I stand here breathing but my lungs refuse to cooperate. The wind distinguishes itself from the stillness of the water — it knows what’s up: that that’s how the world has been moving - fast, relentless, and in all directions. I stand here breathing. I stand here breathing and sometimes I wish I wasn’t. A couple is having sex under their picnic blanket and everybody’s watching, but only with peripheral vision. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of sideway glances, lowered heads, and raucous whispers. A child waddles, one foot after the other, towards the ocean and her father is too busy stroking a fever inside of him, too busy standing short and looking ugly to see the little girl, with her red dress and pigtails, getting to know the water a little too well. She could drown and it would only matter to him because of the reputation it would bring - a terrible father, distracted by beach porn. A couple is having sex under their picnic blanket and everybody’s watching. Everybody but the girl, because she’s occupied with grasping for nothing while her head is under and her mouth too full to be heard. I stand here breathing.
CASE STUDY: THE SPACE BELOW THE GROUND
It’s not like the sun had a choice, the motherfucker has to be there every damn day. Goddamn dog pissed on my fence again, what a delight. My heart is full. There is a space below the ground and I look forward to it. There is a space below the ground and a rapist is sucking on a lollipop. There is a space below the ground and a mother strips her daughter to shower at the apartment balcony, for her eyes to know what it means to wither, for her limbs to remember what muscle memory isn’t, for her body to know what being truly naked feels like – small and with your asshole cold. There is a space below the ground and there is a monkey laughing at you.
You fall.
You fall and the sun is still shining like a cocky little fuck.
You fall and you get back up.
FUNNY HOW TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE NOT HAVING FUN, HUH?
THE BEST ONE THERE IS, ME ME ME.
I’m typing this and choking on a plain slice of bread. My spine’s reclined, my laptop’s on my rib, and my neck’s crooked on the pillow – my airway now obstructed with the final swallow of mush. I’m tired of living. It’s like a bad hobby. I’m alright at it, I enjoy it, but it’s not doing me any good. I talk to myself every night and my face looks pathetic and I love it. I love me. I’m going to get another slice of bread.