You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine

by Alexandra Kleeman

The way my hand struggled showed me that he was unlike the handle of a hammer or a knife: he was not made for my grasp, not designed with me in mind.

Show me what you are when you’re not around me. Let me see how you look when I’m not looking at you. Tell me everything I’m not supposed to know, and don’t leave out any of the things you don’t know yourself.

I feel just like a child again, safe in the understanding that anything bad that were to happen to me would be someone else’s responsibility. Maybe that was the secret to happiness, I thought, being free of the responsibility of yourself.