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0x63fec36e200c318958b47ccc3db8c19e55c3ce4c@newsletter.paragraph.com (.) — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 09:50:19 GMT

i’m sprinting through a cold forest while a little woman inside my chest dances on my heart. I’m running as fast as I can because I feel like I might move so quickly that she loses her balance and falls off. it’s morning and i’m barefoot, ill-prepared for the dew-touched vines and recalcitrant branches whipping into my face as i continue to run. i’m not running toward anything i recognize and everything behind me looks unfamiliar, i feel her jumping up and down and up and down and it’s too much to bear. i can’t make her stop even when she stops she doesn’t stop. i’m moving through the forest still and everything around me blurs, i lose my breath, i stop for a moment and she doesn’t stop dancing. as my vision returns i’m struck by how it looks this early in the morning. the trees are glowing. i’m standing in front of a large banana tree and suddenly i remember that i know the woman inside my chest. from a large bushel i pull a single banana, unpeel the fruit, and slowly eat a small bite. as the chewed fruit falls down my throat i can feel her standing on her toes, reaching toward my esophagus. then - she catches something. the dancing slows. i keep eating the fruit and she keeps catching the fruit and after a few minutes and two bananas the dancing has subsided. i feel her crawling up my throat but it doesn’t feel as nefarious as the dancing, it feels apologetic. slowly, she climbs up the great distance between my gut and my maw, grabbing onto footholds in my throat, psychically begging me not to cough. after a while she’s made it to my adams apple and the feeling isn’t of a cough but a tickle. i’m moments from sneezing or laughing or sniffling or something and she knows it. i close my nose and tell her to hurry but she says she’s doing her best. a few moments later and i can feel her making her way onto the back of my tongue. for a second - it’s too much. i start to laugh or cough and i hear her voice for the first time and she begs me for another moment of my time. i stifle the rasp and allow her to walk slowly down my tongue, the long stretch of land before my teeth. she asks for a slight lift to get her over my teeth and i comply, lifting her toward my lips. as she crawls out of my mouth and onto my face i can’t see her at all. she makes her way across the ridges of my face toward my left side and drops down to my shoulder, slowly walking down to the palm of my hand. when she makes it, she drops to her knees and thanks me.

i look at my hand and it all comes back to me. you’re there you’re not, so on so forth. i’m thinking of everything and looking at you so small and so helpless in the palm of my hand and for a moment i’m confused. how were you dancing on my heart not moments ago when now i can hardly see you? you start to speak from your position of humility but i can’t really hear you. i thank you for coming out of my chest and i get one last look at you before setting you down. you aren’t complaining but you are surprised. you’re so so small but i can still make out your eyes, so large and dark. i don’t want to set you right on the floor of the forest so i ask where you’d like to be. you point me to a fallen tree and tell me this will be fine. i drop you off and for the firsst time im on my way.