The Void

Sofia Batalha
2 min readNov 22, 2023
read in portuguese: https://serpentedalua.com/o-vazio/

Would you offer yourself to the void?

Would you offer your body to its claws?

Would you offer your soul to be undone?

Cyclically, I touch the void, or rather, I get devoured by it. Digested by the mushy, ever-revolving void of nothingness eternally here. The void is an un-place, a verb of mute actions, ashy tones, invisible colors, and a deep, slow throb. Tumtum. Tumtum. Tumtum. A verb of ancient time nothingness, the ever-present gestating all the unfulfilled possibilities, all the exiled smells, mutilated limbs, and itches that can’t be scratched.

This devouring non-place flux is under our feet, opening scars in our hearts and enveloping our souls. It is filled with un-critters, evanescent textured shadows, opaque shallows, constellations of fears, galaxies of grief, and annihilation stars. A saturated white blindness of improvised porous protocols. Tumtum. Tumtum.

Once you are devoured by the void, you become the void itself. You stop feeling its cold breath in your neck and become the frozen air, the stillness between time, the invisible lurking at the edges. You dissolve, liquifying identity, expectations, and validations. Un-done. You just plunge out of grace, out of skin.

Despite its vastness and infinite and mysterious un-place, the void is always in the corners. Just there, in that corner of your home. And there in the bend of the road. Under your bed. Looking back at you from under the table, down the well, curved under the bushes, under that stone. Lingering to unlace, waiting for you to unsee. Waiting for you to blink. Silently wailing, alluring you to un-notice the illusion of constant and final forms. The ancient living nothingness beckons back at you, bringing the promise of dismembering.

The void feels crammed, like trying to nestle your body into a tiny rock fissure. Feeling its pull and invitation, its cold claws around your heart, you just squeeze yourself there while the rock shards cut your flesh. Push. Deeper. Deeper. While you hear your bones shattering. One by one. Crack. Crack. Meanwhile, the ancient slow throb becomes clearer. Tumtum. Tumtum.

Imprisoned by the vastness of the void, you cannot breathe. You gasp for air. You choke for existence.

Crack.

The seed pod opens.

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Sofia Batalha

Journeying 🌿 between inner and outer landscapes, remembering ancient earth practices, radical presence, active listening, ecopsychology, art and writing.