I notice tension coils and bits of hurt popping through my upholstery. My muscles forget why they clench and how to let go. Unnamed, these old injuries and indignities won’t wash away or resume their inner spring. Muscles tighten so quickly for noises in the night, threatening letters, memories. Then they release more slowly than they used to, even as exhaustion blurs evening vision. The tightness accumulates.
I try to sleep and find my legs wound and ready to spring. “Release” I tell them. One reminder doesn’t work anymore. Again and again I coax them to let go their useless grip, bit by bit. Since when do I collect anxiety in my thighs, my knees, my buttocks and calves?
I exhale aching sadness from the large muscular triangle of my upper back, both a storehouse and a fortress. My face contorts as if to cry, but the pain is too old and dry to make tears. My eye sockets fill with sand. My arms hang heavy at my sides.
Adrenaline has a harder grip as well. Caught on the edge of the meadow, my chest pounds, arms rattle against my rib cage.
“Still– be still” I repeat.
But long after the explanation, the precaution, the response, someone shakes me by the sternum and pounds me from the inside out.
I hear the stereo send blue ragtime piano keys to blunt the pounding in my temples and unwind my forehead. When the theme repeats it strokes my shoulders and reminds me:
“Exhale.”
Maybe it’s living alone, or feeling more vulnerable for any of the many reasons of this time in life. Maybe I just notice more, as I patrol against the wasted effort and the worthless stress. Remember when I used to cherish the illusion that stressful jolts and muscular efforts were exciting and powerful? They made me feel effective and alive. Now the throbbing in my chest, the knots in my stomach and shoulders, the pulse in my arms just make me feel old–older than any wrinkle or hotflash.
My skin and muscles miss a warm hand that would unlock them at the end of the day. Surely my nights are poorer without a body larger and warmer than mine to wrap around me as I sleep. I don’t yet crave love, but I do crave touch.