TOMMY PICO
This is one of those lines whose strength comes precisely from its simplicity. In just two sentences, Tommy Pico gathers a tension that has crossed philosophy, psychology, religion, and poetry for centuries: "I am not my body. Get me out of here." The first sentence seems like a metaphysical assertion; the second, a cry. The effect is that one destabilizes the other. Walt Whitman: Not Escaping the Body, but Inhabiting It Whitman would probably respond with the most radical disagreement possible. In Song of Myself , he writes: "I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul." And also: "If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred." For Whitman, there is no "true self" trapped inside a body. Body and soul are expressions of the same reality. To say "I am not my body" would be, for him, a way of amputating a part of one's own being. But there is an interesting nuance. Whitman recognizes moments of profound suffering. His r...