Substance

It is, my dear, about moving through the world and acquiring weight. Substance. Solid bones that displace the atoms around you. An opacity that firmly resists anything moving straight through it. A heaviness as the soles of your feet nestle into the Earth. The slow-blinking self breathes out and settles into the space it inhabits.

We carry this everywhere. The jostling bus sags under the weight of 20 universes. 20 souls. 20 steel balls of self-conception. Every push or pull creates momentum (the tree falls slowly at first, thenallatonce).

Move. Move. Watch the ripples in the air. Stop the car with your palm. Strain the muscles under your body. Crack the pavement with your heels as you walk.

Your warm flesh presses against my shoulder –
push, but you cannot move through me.