Body Memories

By Shannon Couper

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It takes 300 repetitions

to make a body memory

I know this by the way

my ankle rolls under the covers

and my knee bounces on everyone’s nerves

 

I have bitten my nails since I was 7 years old

it’s a filthy habit, I know

but it gives my mouth something to perfect

my teeth something gnaw over

that isn’t my mundane mummy issues

sat staring from the corner

wearing nana’s cracked shiny rings

 

Before that it was hair, chewed ends

and stringy stingy remarks about

Rapunzel and the hairball they 

found in her stomach

 

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I wonder sometimes, grotesque things

about that hairball

if pulling it out was like a scene

from The Ring

or my least favourite bathroom chore

 

I have so many body memories

I hardly know what to do with them all

Mum would have me preserve them

in a hardback photo album

with handwritten captions like

‘Shannon age 7 - just living in the moment!’

I think about stapling that to the

outside of my closed office door

‘Shannon age 22 - just living in the moment!’

 

I am very tired

The moment is exhausting

To get away from flat screens

and flat dreams

I could plait a rope made of hair

and harness a hitchhike to go

but my body doesn’t remember

how to go that quite yet