Monday Musing...Living in the body

"Living in the Body"
by Joyce Sutphen

Body is something you need in order to stay 
on this planet and you only get one. 
And no matter which one you get, it will not 
be satisfactory. It will not be beautiful 
enough, it will not be fast enough, it will 
not keep on for days at a time, but will 
pull you down into a sleepy swamp and 
demand apples and coffee and chocolate cake. 


Body is a thing you have to carry 
from one day into the next. Always the 
same eyebrows over the same eyes in the same 
skin when you look in the mirror, and the 
same creaky knee when you get up from the 
floor and the same wrist under the watchband. 
The changes you can make are small and 
costly—better to leave it as it is. 


Body is a thing that you have to leave 
eventually. You know that because you have 
seen others do it, others who were once like you, 
living inside their pile of bones and 
flesh, smiling at you, loving you, 
leaning in the doorway, talking to you 
for hours and then one day they 
are gone. No forwarding address.