You wake up in the dirt not fully buried—only up to your waist. But still, you’re not free. You can’t move. Your hands tied together by the roots. Legs under pressure from the dirt. Rocks pierce your skin, your veins, in every other direction. The pain feels real. The pain is real. And thoughts drip from your eyes—seeping into your skin like water, like blood. Fertilizing yourself with your own blood, sweat, and tears. 

You remember the faint scent of rain on concrete once. You must have been—what? Eight years old? Watching it puddle at your feet, tracing cracks with your shoe like they meant something. Back then, even silence felt safe. 

Are you crying now? Don’t cry. The dirt will be erased from the scene if you cry. It’s your makeup. You don’t want to ruin that, do you? It’s the only thing that matters. You know that right? You don’t matter. Your thoughts don’t matter. But what if they did in a way? What if, somewhere, someone was still listening? Listening to your cries. Listening like their own lives depended on it. No—don’t go there. That’s a luxury you can never afford. Because nothing matters. Only the dirt. Only the makeup. The makeup that shields your true self matters.

Is it starting to make sense to you now? I think it is, but what you can’t make out is why you’re here. What you’re meant to do. And what you’re even living for.

Because the dirt doesn't care about you. It could crush your bones, your ribs, in mere seconds. It doesn’t consider your feelings even the slightest bit. What does, though? Do you? And I want you to answer that question honestly. But you don’t want to. You don’t want to know the answer because the answer scares you. It’s forcing you to think differently, think about more complex things—things that you don’t want to cross your mind. But you don’t want to take off your mask. The mask they taught you to wear.

You don’t care about your feelings either, do you. That’s what I seem to be gathering right now. You don’t care about yourself, but neither does the dirt. Nothing ever will take you into consideration. That’s the reality you weren’t looking to find, were you? The truth, in fact, terrifies you. That’s what froze you in the first place. Not the dirt. Not the roots. Just your own words. Your own thoughts. They did the damage. Hurting you to the point of self-deprivation.

And self-deprivation is what will slowly eat away at you from the inside out. And one day, when there’s nothing left to gnaw through—no muscle, no memory, no slight breaths— it’ll wear you like a second skin.