i like just the way you are

how do you move your body? kick hard and sharp with your foot? or caress tenderly with your hand? or click your tongue in annoyance? electricity buzzing down nerve endings and through synapses and neurotransmitters diffusing. but how do you do it?

you think it. you want it. and it's yours, to the greatest degree that you believe in your skill it happens. (because i am certain i'd be a better dancer if only i had the faith in me right).

and that's miraculous and awe-inspiring and powerful all at once as it is also terrifying. because when you are stuck beneath invisible bondage, strict as doctrine, heavy as lies, and unrelenting as ticking seconds, you can think and think and think to move but somehow all the majesty and power in that second-nature command you could once task your muscles with is taken and you never knew the formula to get it back. you never needed to. it was always there.

thoughts can be heavy and pain can be exhausting and when one's heart takes over for the brain as a last saving grace it'll take a hell of a talking around her to get her to give you that power back. she taps into auto-pilot, and takes you through driving cars and answering emails and sometimes even drinking orange juice the best she knows how. but you're the one that knows how to turn novel pages, and wink corny at cute girls, and run after kites and dance wiggly and stupid and fun, and feed yourself real food so until she gives you your power back you can't move. you can only watch your body stumble about at the hands of an apprentice puppeteer until you can shake off enough heaviness to convince you and her both that, hey, you've got this.

heart is just doing what she thinks is best for you. but neither of you have all the information ever, so you need to work together.

or else you'll get stuck

try your best, dear one of mine, to keep yourself from growing wounds in the etheric, for they are a self-feeding source of madness.

'to defend' is a stretched synonym of 'to fight', and comes with images of furrowed brows and clenched jaws, cold metal and colder stares. brick walls and massive storms in the shape of humans ready to wreak havoc upon any threat to their cause.

but sometimes a defense is quieter and subtler. they hide in plain sight by drawing down their visage to mundane, to unexceptional, to just enough conventional unpleasantness to create an aversion at the first impression. fortresses are sometimes made of plush hips and wide thighs and invisibility charms. the farther out the physical shield reaches the more padding to protect the fragile heart within. expand the growing body to protect the stunted child it hides. and your first line of defense is the prerequisite of a second-glance before the wall takes on assault.