There is a loose thread inside the corset. I can feel it scraping the same spot every time I breathe, and I get irrationally angry that I cannot ignore it.
It makes no sense, because it should not matter.
But it is the only thing that matters.
The rope does not make noise when it tightens. That is what unsettles me first. I keep expecting some kind of signal: a creak, a warning, anything that justifies the change.
There is nothing.
Only the body changing shape without asking me.
I try to slightly contract my abdomen.
Not to escape.
Just to check whether I am still the one deciding.
The movement arrives… late.
As if it had to pass through another part of the body before becoming mine.
I feel embarrassed thinking that.
More embarrassed that it might be true.
There is a point just below the sternum where everything becomes too present.
It is not exactly pain.
Not pressure either.
It is something else.
Like suddenly realizing you have been still for too long and the body is pointing it out without words.
The air feels different.
Not lacking.
But no longer neutral.
It has texture.
As if the chest has to negotiate with it.
I catch myself thinking something completely out of place: a kitchen chair with a loose leg, the way it scrapes the floor when moved.
That thought does not belong here.
And yet it saves me for a second.
Then it disappears.
The body returns.
It always returns.
And the strange part is that there is no clear moment where I decide to give in.
No decision.
Only continuity.
The adjustment stays the same.
The difference is me.
I find myself adapting.
Small gestures.
Tilting the head by a millimeter.
Letting the shoulders fall as if they had always belonged there.
I do not like that word: “letting go.”
Because it is not letting go.
It is accepting a new shape without discussing it.
And the worst part is that it works.
Too well.
For a moment I think something ridiculous:
“this is better like this.”
And I stop inside that thought.
As if someone else had just heard me think it.
The neck has locked I should…
