I’m at work.
My eyes are closed. I’m trying to focus but I’m stuck in my mind. Another human interaction deemed validating to my escape. This is it. I bend down to feel the cold, rough floor which has been neglected for years. I drag my hands across its patches. This is the last thing I relate to. I press my fingers down until they split the concrete. The crevice fractures with ease as my fingers lace into the surrounding ground. I pull myself through this opening. My face tears past the ridges. Cut after cut sears into my cheekbones and unkempt eyebrows. My shoes - dirtied with flour and sugar - slip off as the last of my body enters this fissure. My hands bury my body deeper than the foundations of the building and send me further into the dirt underneath. I can feel the soil push itself under my broken and bloody fingernails while I desperately try to keep my mouth closed. My teeth shake. As my body slithers through each layer of earth I notice the coolness around me. It’s quiet. The roots and rocks I pass rip at my ribcage. The flesh is peeled away from my body beginning at my thighs. My feet paddle. My arms extend as far as I can reach. These movements are the product of old swimming lessons.. but this process isn’t as delicate to my body as the water was to my 7 year old self. I snap back. I did not come here to be treated gently. Maybe the faint shrieks I hear in the distance are of those I left behind...or maybe it was the moan the earth and I shared as one. A moan of pleasure? Or maybe a sigh of relief? I can’t stand the possibility of being close enough to reach back. So I push on. Intermittent wounds bleed more. My blood soaks into the ground around me. My soul seeps from my skin. I keep going. I think of you. I think of them. I’m not a regretful person. My being begins to decompose. I feel a heartbeat. Is it the life in the earth? Is it alive or am I giving it my own? My thoughts become broken and scattered. Only a bit further. A root catches my ankle. Excitement and fear run through me as electricity with the thought of something pulling me back. I feel foolish. I bite my forearm. Dirt soils my teeth. I feel the grit push between each tooth. I turn my head and my eyes give way. There’s no use for them. I don’t need them anymore. I stop. I feel around. I’m finally down to bones. They don’t rattle. They don’t shake. I pause. I still feel my phantom, fat flesh surround me. My heart is bouncing around my ribcage. I hack away at the layers of black tar which encompass it. Finally its pink and bloodied tissue is uncovered. I squeeze it in my boney hands until it pops. In an instant my bones shatter. I hear the cracking of the concrete closing. My soul curls up. Not as a seed. As a ship wrecked and left sinking to the bottom of a quiet ocean. There’s solitude. Peace here. My being becomes non-existent. I never wanted to be remembered. I hope any remnants are gone. I hear nothing. I see nothing. I find joy in the nothing. I’ve gotten all I’ve wanted.
