The Other Version

I saw myself across the street—

the same walk,

the same way of holding my shoulders,

the same angle to the head,

like I was looking at myself

in a mirror

that was standing on the other side

of traffic.

For a moment,

I couldn't breathe.

Then I realized it was a stranger.

Just someone who moved

the way I move,

who held their body

the way I hold mine,

who had learned, somehow,

the same habits,

the same gestures,

the same way of being

in the world.

It was disorienting—

seeing myself outside myself,

seeing my own posture

reflected in someone else's skin,

seeing the way I exist

from the outside,

the way I'm perceived,

the way my body

speaks without my mouth

opening.

She didn't look like me.

Not really.

Not if you looked closely.

The hair was different.

The clothes were different.

The face was a stranger's.

But the way she moved—

the slope of her shoulders,

the rhythm of her walk,

the specific tilt of her head—

that was me.

That was something

I recognized

in a way I don't recognize

anything else.

We passed each other.

She didn't know.

I didn't tell her.

But I kept walking

with a new awareness—

that my body is a language,

that my posture is a signature,

that I'm walking around the world

wearing myself

like everyone else is wearing themselves,

visible,

readable,

knowable

to strangers.

And somewhere across the street,

someone who isn't me

is walking

with my walk,

holding

with my shoulders,

being

in the way I am,

and we'll probably never know

that we're mirrors

for each other,

that we're twins

of gesture and habit,

strangers

who understand each other

in the deepest way—

through the language

of the body.