What the Body Remembers

It came through the speakers in the grocery store

on Tuesday afternoon.

I didn't recognize it at first,

and then I did,

and my body knew before my brain,

knew what was coming,

what I couldn't stop,

what I couldn't unhear.

The automatic doors were right there.

I left the cart mid-aisle,

just walked toward them,

couldn't slow down,

couldn't think,

just needed to be outside,

needed to be in the parking lot,

needed to be in my car

with my hands on the steering wheel

trying to breathe normally,

trying to remember what normal breathing feels like,

trying to erase the song

from my body.

It's still in there.

The melody.

The rhythm.

The way it hits my chest

before I can tell my feet to move.

I can't go back to that grocery store.

I can't hear that song anywhere—

in a restaurant, in a bar, in someone's car.

It's ruined now.

Not the song. Me.

I'm the thing that's ruined.

The song is fine. It's just a song.

But my body won't let me near it.

My body remembers something

my brain is trying very hard to forget.