My Body is Around

 
When my body was halfway

around the world,

 
I was at home, fuzzed up in myself—and my

 
body was getting soft

in a stranger’s mouth.

We walked the streets.

 
And the lights came on—one

at a time, then all at once.

 
They spat me out,

and I said

what a feeling

 

to be a girl

in a city in Europe. It was

 
all I could think
to say. The stranger
walked faster.

 

When my body was

 
halfway around the world, I

watched my phone’s anger

 
light up its screen. These are signs

 
a stranger told me. We were

on the second story.

 

She asked me to remove an article of clothing

 
and place it in her hand.

The world was bright then.

 
I could feel myself

multiplying,

falling within a metal

 
cup. My body was so different back then.

 
It was important, somehow, to convince

 
my body to come back to me. At the top

 
of a hill, at the bottom of a valley, my body

 
watched the city’s electricity

be harvested

 
in the sky. These are

signs, a stranger said.

Months later, she

 

sat in a purple

fluorescent glow and told me

 
how my body

had crossed

the ocean. She is,

 
the stranger said, doing her best.

There was nothing

 
I could do when my body was

halfway around the world.

 
I looked out a window. My body

was stuck to a bench’s underside.

 

The city came

and replaced it. The city came

 
to my apartment. It had an official notice

 
for my body

to return

by mail.

 
I told the city I didn’t

know where my body

 
was when my body was

halfway around the world.

 
I found what parts my body left

behind—it all devolved into fuzz.

 

It was important to be a girl

 

to every stranger in the city.

I was a girl, but my body

 
walked the streets, busting

the lights that cast the sidewalk

 
in a fuzzy glow.

What a feeling, I thought,

to be a stranger somewhere,

 
to feel the softness of a city light up

like a cigarette. I was a romantic,

 
and my body was halfway around the world.

 
We walked the streets—somewhere

synth music droned its harvest

 
of circuitry, somewhere

my body became a fuzzy patch,

 

like a memory somewhere

 
I chose not to disclose to a stranger.