Does our mind follow our body like a pan following heat? Or does our body follow our mind like that of a comatose individual?

As someone with schizophrenia, I have to be careful when following my mind. When psychotic, delusional, and/or paranoid, I am instructed by my mind to do bizarre things. None of these bizarre  things include killing. Unlike the media suggests, not all mentally ill people have it in them to kill and act violently.

I am a pigeon, gray wings folded against my body in anticipation of flight. I sit, spine straight, head up, eyes opened but not focused, on my bed. I send my mind to the corner lot down the street. My body does not follow.

Construction workers are building a house. I settle on the branch of an oak. I smell fresh sawdust. It is cool. One of the workers wears a red scarf. I covet the scarf, but cannot act to get it because my body is not with me.

One day, the house will hold people. The people will make memories. The boy will become a congressman, the girl, a forensic pathologist. The father is a teacher and the mother, a phlebotomist. They can afford to pay for their children’s education. They can afford to pay for fancy cereals and fresh greens. The kids dress in the latest fashion and play golf on Sundays. No one can tell me this is not so because my mind believes it. I believe it.

The wind tugs on my feathers. I enter the sky and return to my body.

My body craves movement. My body craves exercise. I drive to the gym and get on a treadmill. I read trashy magazines while my body walks. My mind is following my body. My body falls into a steady rhythm of walk. My body carries my mind gracefully; I do not trip, shoe laces tied, feet moving repetitively, one-two, one-two, up-down, up-down.

In answer to my original questions, I believe the mind and body are both powerful. I believe they are inseparable even though a torture victim leaves her body. In order to die, the mind will retune to the body. Both are locked in death. After death, well, that is a whole other thing. The soul speaks…