I walk into the forest
Kneel on the ground
Scrape the earth below a pine tree
I fill my mouth with dirt
Handful after handful after handful.
More and more and more
Voraciously gulping to stop the flood
Earth jammed under my fingernails
My dry throat swallowing dust into every crack and hole
Into the empty, echoing chamber of my womb.
Beyond the capacity of my stomach
Overflowing into my chest cavity
Mixing into the vessels of my beating heart
(why does it insist on beating).
Stopping the flow of blood
Halting the division of cells
An end to the contractions and heaves and pulls of life
Mortar
Gumming up the works.
My saliva mixes with the fossils of life long gone
The decaying flesh of the earth feeding the worms
And all the fungi and microscopic creatures
More plentiful than us
That live in the dark.
I want to be one, too
A mushroom or a blinded shrew
Growing in darkness
Life away from all signs of life
Living off the dead.
More handfuls then
Licking the palms of my hands clean.