slug. what a word. isn’t it a word you can feel? thick, dense, almost lazy as it forms on the lips, like it can barely be bothered to lift itself into sound. just one heavy, invertebrate syllable. oozing off the tongue.
i’ve always liked it when words resemble their meanings. slug sounds damp. it leaves a trail. slug perches on the edge of a leaf. eyeless. faceless. limbless. a fleshy lump pulsing with blind life.
when i was little, i was terrified to bike along the muddy paths by the river after it rained. in fear of them. these tender bodies. this soft matter. so easy to hurt. so easy to crush under careless wheels. the slug teaches us how to be. unarmoured. small. just surviving each wet morning.
maybe that’s why i’m drawn to it now. the word & the creature. the slug & its ways. a slug simply is. doesn’t strive, doesn’t scramble. it eats, it slides, it sketches silvery lines across the earth, feels the rain on its bare back and does nothing more. sometimes, after a hot yoga class, i lie on the terrace floor, wood cold beneath me, looking up at the wide sky. i watch the undersides of raindrops as they fall down on me. one after another. no centre of gravity. slug-like. pool-like. feeling everything at once & nothing in particular.
i’ve been feeling burnt out lately. hollowed. & this isn’t a new feeling. this emptiness is habitual, cyclical. a tune i’ve come to know. what we’ve decided is normal life feels too much. too dense for a neurodivergent mind like mine. i’d argue it’s too much for any mind. we’re over-stimulated, over-extended. there’s too much spilling in. our attention is frayed, pulled thin & taut on the hooks of algorithms feeding us that steady drip drip drip of dopamine. and what’s there, waiting? just the endless bog of human joy & suffering.
a friend’s trip to spain. bright beaches & wine. then, burnt bodies. holocaust in gaza. a heated political debate & a beautiful poem. a corporate feedback email. this is what i eat in a day. p diddy did what with all that baby oil? 73% of wildlife has gone extinct in the last 50 years. & oh i’ve just woken up. my body aches with it all. i’m horrified but i need it. i need it but none of it reaches me. i take a bath & don’t even feel the heat of the water, don’t even smell the soap. i can’t. how could i? i’m existing outside.
slug is a way to remember. to escape. to become permeable. to become bored. there is grace in slugdom. in choosing smaller orbits. slug is my way of resisting the overwhelm. the numbness. the hardening. it is choosing to be soft under the wheels of this world.