being home

my hometown is a hole.

familiar southern soil, baked in the summer heat.

i dig into the underworld, press my skin

against the warm earthen core.

won’t you come out? my mother says.

i say nothing. i only peer from my tunnels,

beady black eyes glistening with hunger.

it is too cold —

too cold up there,

and the bones are all down here.

.

i want to be with the bones.