February might be over, but reflections of love persist throughout the year and within the daily lives of us all. Whether you’re wearing the rose-colored glasses that accompany any new, exciting relationship or throwing them to the ground in writhing anger, love makes hearts pound, hands sweat, throats scratch, and people everywhere go crazy trying to translate the feeling into words. I have always been curious about the nature of love myself, despite being 21 and only having two successful(ish) romantic relationships under my belt. Out of all the creative minds I could have selected to illuminate the essence of love, I had to choose the metaphysical poet, John Donne, and contemporary singer, songwriter, producer, and performer, FKA twigs.
Donne was born in 1572, 453 years ago today, but his philosophical explorations of love have the potential to enlighten our present condition. There’s a reason his intellect has withstood the test of time — he directly challenges broad questions which speak to the entire human experience, animating individual scenes of passion with incredible attention to detail.
Similarly, FKA twigs pushes the boundaries of our modern conception of love. Her most recent release, Eusexua, is a genre-defying album which links techno with experimental hyper-pop production elements. The ethos behind the album intensifies the listening experience. twigs coined the term, Eusexua, describing the emotion as “purely and unabashedly feeling more comfortable in [her] body sexually, [being] more present, and [reaching the] pinnacle of human experience” (7:11-7:23).
This is not unlike the message behind Donne’s metaphysical poetry. Take “The Ecstasy” for example. This 76-line masterpiece outlines the meeting of two souls who transcend their mortal form and become one greater entity, propelling their love into action.
Donne wants to find what is held within the depths of himself, his lover, and their joint bond, so he animates a stripping process when “souls… [are] gone” away from their bodies (Donne, 15). He strips the body of the soul in search of that pinnacle of undeniable love between two metaphysical beings.
He’s after not a one-night stand, but something that is deeply rooted in the recognition of another person’s value and addition to his overall livelihood.
As souls come into contact, “a new concoction [takes]” form (Donne, 27). They meet to create a greater culmination of life than what is contained within a single soul. Donne states that “this Ecstasy doth unperplex…and tell us what we love; / We see by this, it was not sex” (Donne, 28-31). At this moment, Donne’s goal is not to fulfill his desire for physical connection. He’s after not a one-night stand, but something that is deeply rooted in the recognition of another person’s value and addition to his overall livelihood. The ecstasy which he describes is founded on the inexplicable affinity and inward kinship held within the strongest romantic connections.
FKA twigs captures a similar “je ne sais quoi” within her definition of Eusexua, yet, her vision broadly extends to several facets of life, reaching far beyond the direct union of two souls which Donne finely explicates in his poem Throughout the creation of Eusexua, twigs drew immense inspiration from Prague’s electric rave scene and the feelings of euphoria associated with giving up the mind and body to entrancing music within the collective “amoeba of culture” which is the rave. However, her philosophy also encompasses more than the party scene that gave birth to her powerful message. twigs wants listeners to take away a sense of freedom and liberation from Eusexua. From her own perspective, “It feels like a matter of survival.”
In the title track of the album, twigs sings, “I'm vertical sunrised / Like flying capsized /
Free, I see you are /Eusexua” in a proclamation of her overwhelming acceptance and recognition of life’s tumultuous beauty. “Capsize” normally has a negative connotation (to overturn or upset something), but in this context, twigs upends the restraints of her bodily, human condition. She not only realizes her full potential in this moment, but comes eye to eye with the feeling she’s been holding “deep inside.”
The last lines of the song retroactively reflect on her path to eventually reaching the pinnacle of human experience: “People always told me that I take my love too far / Then refuse to help me / I was on the edge of something greater than before / But nobody told me.” Like Donne, twigs illuminates the tough internal work required to reach a heightened state of being.
In a moment of cathartic release, the song ends with twigs expelling the phrase “eusexua” in a drawn-out crescendo, representing the force necessary to break into the depths of the soul.
Oftentimes in the swing of my busy life, I become tightly wound, unable to properly express myself or tune into my creative power. In these moments, I long to capture the beautiful potential of life, but I feel trapped by myself—like the core of my existence is imprisoned within a hard shell encasement begging to be cracked wide open. twigs interprets this exquisite tension contained by the soul when human nature prevents the actualization of creative potential. In a moment of cathartic release, the song ends with twigs expelling the phrase “eusexua” in a drawn-out crescendo, representing the force necessary to break into the depths of the soul. No one is alone in this feeling, but we must be intentional about finding the key to unlock our individual hard shell encasement—or else it will continually prevent our active engagement with the world.
Donne describes the necessity of intentionally connecting with the hidden parts of our identity to reach a transformed and all encompassing love arguing that “pure lovers’ souls [must] descend / To affections, and to faculties, / Which sense may reach and apprehend, / Else a great prince in prison lies” (Donne, 45-48). If a love is true, two individuals must consciously work together to understand the contents of their souls and realize the full potential of their love. twigs makes this concept accessible to everyone. She wants others to be able to imagine this feeling for themselves because it can be truly transformative for realizing and living out the full potential of the human experience. She exemplifies how to practice a life full of love and compassion by linking our mind with our body.
Following some intense trauma over recent years, she’s come to view the body as a pure source of healing. She puts this mindset into practice through her prolific use of techno beats on the album which are scientifically proven to be therapeutic for listening. Alexandra Diamond-Rivlin recently reported for Dazed Magazine that a study from 2024 “shows that binaural beats that appear in this type of music can calm the nervous system and even be used to treat trauma patients.” twigs even shares an eleven step somatic healing process that works in tandem with the album, including a lot of “raw and primal movement” (8:53-8:55).
FKA twigs invites us —commands us even — to step into a new mode of living. In this sense, we may continue to push life to the fullest possible potential through being present, curious, and attune to our internal condition as well as our physical surroundings.
twigs also acknowledges the nuance of Eusexua as a concept that’s “so incredibly powerful, but also so incredibly dangerous.” She explains, “once the human race realizes that they can constantly be on the path to Eusexua, everything kind of dismantles” (3:44-4:00). In other words, the concept of eusexua provides individuals with guidance on how to divest of their stringent routines, patterns, and habits. FKA twigs invites us —commands us even — to step into a new mode of living. In this sense, we may continue to push life to the fullest possible potential through being present, curious, and attune to our internal condition as well as our physical surroundings.
Donne describes the indulgent nature of discovering love’s depth: “whilst our souls negotiate there / We like sepulchral statues lay; / All day, the same our postures were, / And we said nothing, all the day” (Donne, 17-20). These lines describe the calmness which accompanies the body as two souls interanimate. Everything feels perfect, as if nothing could possibly come between the bond. I’ve encountered a similar experience with my best friend who I openly call my platonic soulmate. It feels otherworldly to know someone who I connect with on such a deep level — sometimes it feels like we can read each other's minds. But it's taken time to openly recognize our connection for what it is.
When I first met my platonic soulmate, I immediately recognized something special about our dynamic — it’s the type of connection that only surfaces once in a lifetime. Initially, I could not possibly wrap my head around how I felt and at times, became quite frustrated trying to put words to the feeling. However, I trusted in myself and continued to explore our connection even in the face of uncertainty. I now believe that we experience eusexua when we’re together. This was only made possible through our mutual recognition and acknowledgement of our connection over time. I think it’s important to reach a greater understanding of love’s power and potential not only within romantic connections, but wherever love strikes us. The relationship I share with my friend is deeply nourishing for my soul and more fulfilling than any romantic relationship I’ve ever experienced. I know that I’ve reached a greater understanding of myself through this connection as well, which inherently improves my outlook on life and love.
FKA twigs visually links the body with several technological elements to transgress normative expectations associated with relationships. In this sense, she reclaims her existence in space through her ability to be truly present and original. The way she adapts the digital world to interact with her body and art speaks volumes, such as in her music video for “Striptease.” Three minutes and 50 seconds into the video, her body begins to metamorphosize into a kaleidoscopic image which captures the complexity of her identity and the nature of being human. We see her depth as the music audibly slows in a chilling sequence of chops which eventually speed back up into a tribal vocalization by twigs, revealing another layer of her identity.
Not only does FKA twigs effectively reimagine our conception of life from a modern perspective considering the complexities of the digitized world, but she offers us vocabulary to grasp this heightened state of being and consciousness to channel our imaginaries into a continual flow state.
“I would define a truly imaginative work as something that implicitly redefines or reimagines our ideas about life or existence, something that gives me new vocabulary for being,” shares Delores McElroy, lecturer at UC Berkeley's film and media department, in another Dazed article titled: “David Lynch and the shrinking value of imagination.”
This article acknowledges that “great imagination comes from consciousness and contemplation” and questions how we should “nurture those qualities in a world that increasingly demands and monetises our attention.”
Not only does FKA twigs effectively reimagine our conception of life from a modern perspective considering the complexities of the digitized world, but she offers us vocabulary to grasp this heightened state of being and consciousness to channel our imaginaries into a continual flow state. She and Donne would have a lot to talk about if they had the chance to meet in some artist's afterlife. They might even find themselves in a mutual state of Eusexua.
Eusexua is a practice. Eusexua is a state of being. Eusexua is the pinnacle of human experience.
