Snail
I used to care more
Picked up snails mid-crossing
Fingers hovering
Like I was interrupting something great
Were they headed anywhere
Or just dragged forward
By whatever keeps them going about
I try to picture them
The ground gone in an instant
By a force impossible to repel
Curled into themselves
Waiting for it all to end
Then placed back down
So smooth, it could not be hell
No sense of distance
No sense of before
Nothing on its mind
It just moves
Martijn Schetselaar is a poet based in the Netherlands. He began writing in early 2026 with no formal literary background. Martijn writes minimal poetry with deep cuts. His work captures the tension between calculation and vulnerability, framing the exact moment something shifts
