Episode 29: Snails

Hi everyone, I hope you’re doing as well as you can be today. This week’s poem and episode bring us alongside someone going for a walk after a harmful argument. As they process, they find themselves questioning the balance between necessary solitude and approaching apology with vulnerability and openness. There is something to be said for needing alone time and space after a disagreement, especially in reaching the conclusion that we’re the ones who need to apologize, but there is also vitality in re-entering a space with someone heart-first or spirit-first post-argument, even if you don’t have perfectly rehearsed words. Words do matter. Harm matters. Intent does matter (though not to gaslight harm). Love—how we balance these in space and community with others—needs imperfect willingness and courage, keeping in mind that imperfect is not synonymous with flawed, damaged, or defective.

I’ll share it with you now:

On the day of our fight
I found the walkway
for the walk of snails—

a seemingly ordinary sidewalk

striping a road & a forest—

delicately painted in patience:

strings of slow, silver slime.

And off to the side,
nestled in a pad of earth,

perched a perfect robin egg.

Afraid to contaminate it

with my touch

I left it still, warm, exposed,
and with that choice,
I left behind my exhale.

On the second day,
the eggshell was empty

& cracked in two &
I wasn’t sure
if the baby had hatched

or been eaten &
all along the sidewalk
the snails who’d survived

were still crossing & I tried

not to step on those alive

or those who’d died—

crushed by shoe soles & bike tires.

I kept checking the grooves
of my well-worn shoes 

for shell fragments, flesh, and silver

like I kept checking my texts

for a reply—

not to an apology I hadn’t offered
but my fragile defensiveness.

You see, I know I’m wrong

but the letters in the word ‘ego’

swirl like snail shells

& I know that

if I hug my body

into a curly coil
where I can only see myself,

I might find solitude

but also dark stillness.

If I open my chest & unfurl,

I will see light in daring

to cross the sidewalk bridge,

moving from stillness to slowness.

And if I keep at this, 

even

unsure-footed & unsteady,

I might just leave 

the best parts

of my vulnerability—

spiralling in my belly—

as a trail of silver 

for others to heed

as I follow the path

of tears down my cheeks

dripping onto what

I must type across the screen.

Breathe the words in. What do they make you feel or think? How did they connect with your senses? What colours or symbols did you notice? What meaning did you draw? Metaphors? Interpretations? Clarity? Messages?