a center tightly wound

They always called it "poise" but
if they'd asked, I'd have told them:

No.

Paralysis.
Inability to move.

---

Even now, I do not make
unnecessary movements. After
a run I push my muscles
to stretch as best they can but
though I am
leaner day by day it is often all I can do to

brush the very
tips
of my
toes, always
just out of reach, because
I am so inflexible,
unbending, rigid inside
and out. Every day

I operate from
a center so tightly wound I
do not know
what
might
happen
if it were to loosen
and so I do not

yield. For if this
twisted
mass of knot on
knot on
knot were ever picked free, what then

would be left to fill
out this treacherous
skin that is
the shape of
who I am?