Unearth
Alyssa Kirby
Unearth
I can’t help but fantasize about the suffocating serenity
that living underground would give me.
Maybe then I could forget the tender reminders which You placed
upon my burdened shoulders.
Existence could finally be a simple thing
as I try to capture the art of breathing in and out.
It might make me feel closer to You.
It would always be frigid and mellow in a way that only dirt that has just captured
the rain can be. And smell.
Maybe that would calm the aching that had always existed with (or because of) the knowledge of existence.
And I could feel
the earth around me and breathe in the sweet world.
My new world.
I could find a place to stop thinking about how long it’ll be until I lose You
or
how long it’s been since I already lost You.
The dampness wouldn’t have an effect on me,
I don’t think,
because it wouldn’t be able to seep into my bones and soften the callous
edges that construct my modest outline.
It wouldn’t be too cold since my blankets are the soil around me,
and I would have shade even in the most intense sunlight.
Maybe then I could find a freedom.
Earthworms and beetles could crawl on me and weigh down my eyelids
so that I wouldn’t have to stare into the confusion of the void
or
oppose the void that would follow me around like the people I try to forget.
So maybe someday I could unearth myself and be someone different.
Someone who isn’t afraid to think of You
and doesn’t let noise shut them into isolation.
Someone who can feel enough to make them want to keep going
but not enough that every bone becomes saturated with emotion.
And I think that’s what emancipation is about.
I’ve been thinking about that word
a lot since I found You.
I’ll make it my goal and my ambition:
to get to the place that maybe You always wanted me to be and not the place You left me or
perhaps You had never even found me
and how would I know?
I think that may be the best part about living underneath
the earth and finding a home somewhere I can
exist
suspended
in rapture
in limbo.
That I can still comprehend enough that I remember who I was
but not enough to think clearly and without the dirt filling my nose and mouth.
Because I never want to forget You.
I never want to leave You.
I never want to suffocate You or step so far away
that You fly from my little glass jar and into the sky.
I never want to be mad at You.
How could I?
That’s why I can’t figure out why I continue to starve.
I’ve been thinking about salvation
and how I don’t really know what can save me
and
I think maybe that’s why I want to be so close to You.
And You...
You’re the couple that sets their blanket out above me
to laugh and hold each other close.
And You’re the children that run around on top of me,
carefree, limitless, innocent, playing and yelling.
You’re the mother that plants daisies and whose spade I can hear repeatedly hitting the earth above my head.
And You’re the birds that sing to me every morning
You
are the squirrels that bury their food beside me and
You are the deer that step lightly so as not to disturb the dirt and
You
are the roots that wrap themselves around me like the arms of someone I used to love or still love or want to love or have loved in another lifetime or who loves me, but I can’t find it in myself to love them back because
You
are the dew that sits on the berries around me
and the gales that send shivers of ease through me
and the rainbow that I just know must be above me even though I can’t see it because
You
are the dirt that enfolds me and keeps me safe.