The Ribs

Your ribs form a cage. Twelve pairs of curved bones enclosing what is most precious in you — your heart, which beats so that you may live, and your lungs, which breathe so that you may be. They are the protective wall around everything you need to stay alive. No other part of your skeleton works as intimately with your breath. Every time you inhale, they expand. Every time you exhale, they lower. They move with you, tens of thousands of times a day, for a lifetime.

But a protective cage is also, precisely, a cage. The same bars that protect your heart can imprison it. The same structure that gives your breath room can constrict it. The ribs are a border territory — between safety and constriction, between support and fetter, between shelter and captivity. When they make themselves felt — through pain, pressure, stiffness, tension — they always touch both sides of this border.