Sevenline No. 42
The Clarity of Empty
Fasting strips things down to the architecture of what is actually needed in the body, pulling back the layers of habit and comfort until only the essential remains. Hunger comes on first as a huge ass complaint, chapters long, loud and insistent, protesting against its longing to be fed. My body resists, then negotiates, then goes quiet and stops arguing to begin the slower, more honest work of resetting itself. There is a strange and luminous clarity that comes with emptiness of my stomach system, of needing less, of cleansing my body, which turns out to be an entirely different and more durable kind of personal understanding, guttural… literally. This emptiness of the body is a different quality of presence altogether, like how a room feels after you have minimalized it in a beautiful way. I move lighter through the hours, think clearer, pushing through the muscle memory cravings until I want less food, and notice that wanting less no longer feels like self-deprivation, but a spaciousness, like a window opened in a room needing air. And that feels exactly like freedom, a gift I am allowed to give to my body, because I say so.
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