It reminds me of patchouli, this stink of dirt against my nose and mouth. It’s a wet, crawling smell that has laid a clutch of eggs on my tongue and left me birthing the taste of rot from between my lips. Wrapped in a shroud, I lay still and fragile, feeling like birds’ wings. It’s cool and damp and dark here, and I am covered, surrounded, suffocated and drowning in the earth, in a hard casing of silk and wood.
I am in this cocoon, shrivelled and broken, but soon, I will find my way out. I will slit the bindings and push up out of the earth like a green thing seeking the sun.
I will uncurl again, and breathe something other than sour soil. Someday.
