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Getting the Pump, by Jordan Castro

harpers.org · 6,454 words · saved by 1 readers

We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure Illustration by Laura Peretti T he black, rubbery mat bubbles unpredictably beneath my back as I hold one sixty-pound dumbbell in each hand, palms facing each other above my chest—knees bent, feet firm—and move my arms out, then lower them, slow and controlled. I feel my chest stretch. I fight gravity. I raise the dumbbells up toward each other again, consciously contracting my chest throughout the movement, and squeezing as hard as I can at the top; I imagine my muscle fibers microscopically tearing; I imagine cells shooting through my body toward my chest like electrical currents, or little guppies rushing in a river; I feel engorged—I think of blood; I crease my eyes and grunt; I shrink myself down and enter into the muscle. Focus, I think, feeling myself drift a bit. Ggggghh. I shrink myself down even smaller. I shrink myself down into nothing. I confront the nothingness there with a new kind of attention.

February 2024 Issue [Miscellany] Getting the Pump On the resurrection of the body by Jordan Castro , Illustration by Laura Peretti [Miscellany] Getting the Pump On the resurrection of the body by Jordan Castro , Adjust Share The black, rubbery mat bubbles unpredictably beneath my back as I hold one sixty-pound dumbbell in each hand, palms facing each other above my chest—knees bent, feet firm—and move my arms out, then lower them, slow and controlled. I feel my chest stretch. I fight gravity. I raise the dumbbells up toward each other again, consciously contracting my chest throughout the move

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