What the Body Knows
- May 24
- 2 min read
By Dianne Casey
PROMPT — Ask Me.
The bureau needed a certain combination to work.
Chips and smudges. Drawers that only closed a particular way.
Glass with lead that never seemed to come fully clean.
Scratches where hands had leaned.
Fingerprints rubbed deep into varnish.
It held memory in its surface.
Not just witnessing.
Asking what it says about you.
What does my body know?
More than I like to admit.
It knows the world if I trust it.
It knows when to rest and when to gather strength.
If I stop arguing with it, it opens quiet staircases to places only the body can reach.
It holds memory the way a sunset does.
Quietly. Completely.
It knows smell, taste, and lineage.
It knows the rhythm of breathing, the lift in the chest when something rings true.
It knows the ache that settles in the shoulders after a long day.
The drop in the stomach when something is wrong before you can explain it.
The warmth that spreads when something is safe.
It knows how to rock a human.
How to settle you, the way a womb must once have done.
Not clever in the way the mind tries to be.
But certain.
Immediate.
It knows when pain hits.
When nerves flare.
When something tightens inside you before the mind catches up.
The body is not a passenger.
It moves first.
It acts.
It is a verb.
If in doubt, ask the body.
The bureau still holds its marks
smudges, scratches, fingerprints pressed into varnish.
Memory lives in surfaces.
The body is one of them.
Dianne Casey is a poet and writer from the North East of England. Her work explores memory, working-class life and the body through narrative poetry and performance. Her writing has been performed on stage and shared in community spaces.
