“a body unmoving” poem

⚠️ Content warning: Mentions/themes of death and nihilism ⚠️

Hey folks :)

This week I’m sharing a little something that I wrote recently. I was listening to some of my favorite ambient songs from artists like Aphex Twin, Bibio, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and Photay on my way home, and I caught myself in a moment. As soon as I parked, I started thinking about bodies (that of human beings, animals, etc.) and their place in the world. I thought about life and death and the differences and similarities between them. I do tend to lean into pretty nihilistic views when I get deep in thought about this kind of stuff, but I like to think it’s a positive kind of nihilism. I am comforted by the idea that my body, and all of the matter around me, are all made of the same thing. When the pressures and trials of life are suffocating me, I try my best to breathe deep, stay hopeful, and make peace with the fact that I’m just a floating body in this vast universe! I am so grateful to be experiencing all of the emotions that come with existence, and I’m so happy to be a part of this world. I don’t have any concrete views on an “afterlife,” but I do know that I’m very okay with the idea of my body becoming one with the rest of the earth, the air, the other creatures, and the universe again. I hope you like this poem I wrote called “a body unmoving.”

It remains still

The way it always knew it would

Hoping to become an instrument

A motivator

An all-encompassing and ever-flexing muscle

But it never quite made it

Due to one reason or another

It remains unmoving

Breathing in the toxins of truck exhaust and the sweet aroma of flowers nearby

The ash stains, the crumbs, even the tiniest molecules of accumulated dust that make up the smell of a sofa

Hearing the endless rapping and tapping of the leaves and insects

Feeling the incessant burrowing of creatures far below and chattering of those on the surface

Remaining still

Frozen in time, until

A gentle and gradual pulse

It’s ever-so-slightly moving

By what means of life or inspiration, it has not a clue

The lack of motion could curse it no more

And it relinquishes all aspect of control or manipulation

It succumbs to that which moves it

And slowly, it becomes one

With the air

The exhaust

The flowers

The dust

The sofa

The creatures

And the dirt

It need not worry about moving

Anymore