What the Body Already Knows

I used to think my body was something I had to manage.

If it reacted too quickly, I’d tell myself to calm down. If I felt tight or on edge, I’d call it stress and try to push through it. And when everything went quiet, I took that as a good sign. Like I’d finally got it right.

It never occurred to me that those responses weren’t neutral. They were things I’d learned.

From the outside, they can look like strength. Staying still. Not reacting. Letting things pass. It can look like being in control, like you’ve figured something out.

But the body keeps its own version of things.

It notices shifts before you do. Small changes in tone, in atmosphere, in the way something feels without being able to explain why. It reacts quietly, often in ways you don’t pay attention to at first.

For a long time, I trusted the version of events I could explain.

Now I find myself paying more attention to the parts that don’t come with words. The ones that sit underneath everything else.

This piece comes from that place. That space where things look calm, but aren’t. Where something has settled on the surface, but not quite underneath.

I didn’t realise how much of my life had been spent bracing.

Not against anything obvious. Nothing you could point to.

Just a quiet readiness. A tightening in the body, as if something might happen that required me to be prepared.

It becomes normal, that feeling. Easy to mistake for being careful. Or strong.

I didn’t question it. I carried it.

⸻

Nothing Keeps Us

You stand at the edge longer than you mean to.

Shoes still on.
Watching the line
where water keeps arriving
and leaving again
as if it has already decided something.

The body knows before you do.

A pull backward.
A small refusal
in the calves,
in the hinge of the knee.

Nothing dramatic.

Just enough
to suggest
you could walk away.

People pass behind you
without stopping.

They don’t wait for the water
to make sense.

They go in
or they don’t.

You tell yourself
it will be quick.

That you won’t stay long enough
to feel it properly.

That you are only
testing.

Step into the water
without ceremony.

Foam finds the ankles
cold enough
to make the body notice
then leaves.

It comes back.
Not playful.
Not cruel.
Just exact.

Stand there long enough
and the shock dulls.

Breathing shifts.
A slight lean forward.

Balance stops being fixed
becomes something
worked out
moment by moment.

The sea keeps repeating itself.
Until the body stops resisting
and starts answering.

The pull.
The release.

It doesn’t look at you.
Doesn’t need to.

The sea keeps time.

It doesn’t keep you.

You step back
when you’ve had enough.

Not because it changes
because you do.

⸻

It’s strange, how quickly the body learns what to tolerate.

What feels sharp at first becomes something you can stand in. Then something you barely notice.

I used to think that meant I was coping. That I had adjusted.

Now I’m less sure.

Sometimes it just means I stayed longer than I needed to.

⸻

Fog

You are not yourself
when you disappear like this.

Fog makes it easier
edges thinned,
eyes slipping past,
nothing asked for.

It can feel like relief.

A body allowed
only in outline.

Only some people
get the full version.

The rest
something partial,
something that won’t
ask too much.

You learn it early.

How to stay visible
without being touched.
How to warm yourself
without heat.

Fog isn’t protection.
It’s delay.

It holds the shape together
until the moment
someone comes close enough
to see

and there’s nothing
ready.

When it lifts,
what’s left
isn’t mystery.

It’s habit.

The body leaving
before it’s seen.

⸻

I used to call that control.

Knowing how much to give. When to step back. How to keep something of myself untouched.

It felt like safety.

But there’s a difference between choosing distance and living inside it.

One is a decision.

The other becomes a pattern.

⸻

What Looks Like Calm

This looks like a pause.

Light soft enough
to believe in.

Daisies forcing stone.
Green heat.

Something almost convincing.

Hands test the stems.
They give.

A line appears
as if that matters.

The chest settles.
Or pretends to.

Life doesn’t stop.
It presses on.
Takes what it can.

A gate clicks shut.

Then the space after it
longer than it should be.

Air holds.
The body holds.

Nothing resolves.

It just continues
while you’re still here.

⸻

There are moments where everything seems to settle.

Nothing urgent. Nothing breaking.

Those are the moments I used to trust the most.

I thought that was peace.

Now I think it was something quieter, and less certain.

A pause, maybe. A space between things.

Not an ending. Not even a resolution.

Just a place where nothing is happening yet.

⸻

Misheard as Peace

The season exhales.
The sky drains of colour.
Trees return to breath.

Light bends
softer,
slower
as if it’s already leaving.

Enough of pretending to shine.

Hands loosen.
Not because they chose to.

Smoke threads the ribs.

Rain opens everything wider.

Nothing ends.
It shifts.
Thins out.

A window fogs your name
gone,
then gone again.

Air tastes of wool,
like something kept too long
behind the teeth.

Leaves don’t fall.
They rehearse it.

The body hears.
Goes quiet.

No argument.

A sound stops
and the space after it
stays.

Even silence
has weight.

Even letting go
marks the skin.

Stillness

not peace.

Something
misheard.

⸻

I don’t think the body is trying to trick us.

If anything, it’s more honest than we are.

It registers things before we name them. Before we explain them away.

It holds tension long after we’ve told ourselves it’s gone.

And sometimes, it recognises the difference between quiet and safety long before we’re willing to.

⸻

After

You don’t notice it at first.

Not the shift
that would be too clear.

Something loosens
where it used to hold.

The body moves
without checking.

Steps taken
without rehearsal.

The same places
water, air,
the sound after a gate

but they don’t ask
the same questions anymore.

You don’t call it peace.

You don’t call it anything.

Just this:

the absence
of bracing.