go back to your roots -- so I dug,
knuckles deep in mud, where the roots were thickest.
Worms tied themselves around my fingers;
it had been a good year for rain.
I dug past tunnels and underground kingdoms
until the soil crumbled
until pebbles became boulders became bone
until spines stitched the earth shut,
scars that once hemorrhaged
something distant.
I dug until my knuckles bled
and dirt puddled into paludal flames.
Sweat glistened in the lava light and sizzled
drip by drip from my fingertips. For miles more
ash choked me, pressure suffocated me,
fire consumed me, ripped me up raw as I screamed,
I kept digging until I scraped the last of molten earth aside
and gazed onto what keeps an earth whole,
what I’ve always known: the liquid fury within.