The Body Won’t Rise

The Body That Won’t Rise

The body doesn’t fall apart down here.

It shuts down in slow motion.

Not violently.

Not dramatically.

Just quietly, steadily, inevitably — like a machine losing power one circuit at a time.

The first thing I notice is the refusal of the limbs.

Not pain.

Not paralysis.

Just a heaviness so complete it feels like my bones have absorbed the weight of the entire room.

I tell my body to stand.

It doesn’t argue.

It simply doesn’t move.

The command travels through me like a weak signal — reaching the muscles, but not strong enough to activate them. The intention is there. The will is there. The need is there.

The movement is not.

The second thing I notice is the collapse of momentum.

Rising used to be automatic — a shift of weight, a push of the legs, a simple transfer of energy. Now it feels like trying to lift myself out of wet cement.

My thighs tremble before I’ve even moved.

My knees lock.

My hands brace against the bed or the counter or the table, but the force doesn’t translate.

It’s not that I won’t rise.

It’s that I can’t.

The third thing is the betrayal of gravity.

Gravity used to be neutral — a constant, predictable force.

Down here, it feels personal.

It presses on my shoulders.

It drags at my spine.

It pulls at my ribs.

It anchors my hips to whatever surface I’m sitting on.

Standing becomes an act of defiance against a force I no longer have the strength to resist.

The fourth thing is the slowness of the mind.

Not fog.

Not confusion.

Just delay.

The thought “get up” forms, but it doesn’t ignite anything.

It floats.

It lingers.

It fades before it becomes action.

My mind is underwater.

My body is in quicksand.

My will is dimmed.

There is no part of me left with enough speed to rise.

The fifth thing is the stillness.

Not rest.

Not peace.

Just stillness.

A stillness that feels imposed rather than chosen.

A stillness that feels like being pinned by invisible hands.

A stillness that feels like the body has entered a low-power mode to conserve whatever energy remains.

My children see it in the way I stay seated longer than I should.

In the way I hesitate before standing.

In the way I brace myself on furniture as if the floor might shift beneath me.

They don’t see weakness.

They see effort.

The sixth thing is the quiet grief — the realization that rising used to be simple.

Automatic.

Effortless.

Now it feels like lifting a collapsed version of myself.

The seventh thing is the surrender — not giving up, but acknowledging the truth:

The body that won’t rise is not failing.

It is protecting.

It is conserving.

It is surviving.

It is saying:

You have gone as far as you can today.

You cannot rise yet.

You are allowed to stay here.

The body that won’t rise is not a broken body.

It is a body carrying too much weight, too much dimness, too much slow-motion gravity to move the way it once did.

This is the Ground.

Not dramatic.

Not catastrophic.

Just heavy.

A place where rising is no longer a reflex.

A place where standing becomes an act of endurance.

A place where the body stays seated because it cannot do anything else.

This is the body that won’t rise.

Not unwilling.

Unable.

Held down by the weather inside it.