Muscle Memory

Within innumerable layers of fibrous, sinewy tissue, lie hidden hurts and secrets, hushed through generations.

Holding forever memories of pain and betrayal, when the mind does its best to forget. She remembers, as if this pain has been grafted to her bones.

As a young girl became a young woman, her muscles lengthen and strengthen over time, with experience, disturbing the delicate layers of tightly knit secrets – her most carefully guarded memories of hurt, of violation, of anger, guilt, and shame threaten to come unburied.

Countless times each day her muscles move through their precise anatomical dance of push and pull, and from this well-oiled machine memories are jostled, knocked a bit loose, come dangerously close to the surface.

Perfect stillness is the only way to keep the peace, to preserve the blissful state of ignorance found only in personal stagnation, to pause the war between body and mind. So much kept masterfully hidden away in desperate attempts at protection threaten to be revealed with any deep stretch or quick motion.

When years of tension are at long last released,  the truth comes closer: old smells and odd sounds, grainy snippets of memories, deep instinctual knowing. Despite the mind’s vehement denial, the body truth of these revelations is undeniable; her innermost self recognizes their voracity, and her curiosity only grows stronger, her genuine surety unshakable, the more she protests. She must know what all of this means.