I was buried alive. When something bad happens to you, people tend to use a million different niceties to dance around any description of the event, as if not talking about it will make it all go away. In fact, people get upset with you when you talk about trauma, because talking about it makes people afraid. I want you to be afraid. If one more ignorant slob asks me to go camping with them, I’ll scream. I don’t enjoy the intrusiveness of dirt, the way it clings to everything and seemingly multiplies like an inorganic parasite. I can still taste it climbing down my throat, inserting and packing itself into every opening of my body. “Hey there Delilah, are you still with us?” I blink fast and try to remember how to inhale and exhale. Several surrounding smiles sink as I fall to the floor and put my head safely between my knees, careful not to touch the dirt beneath me as I crouch. I stare down the earth, trying desperately to see it as it is now and not as it was all that time ago. “Delilah? Are you okay? You don’t have to go camping with us if you don’t want to, I didn’t mean to overwhelm you… What’s going on?” I dig my nails into my fists and squeeze my eyes tight. When I’m sure I’m ready, I stand and spit at the floor. Turning my eyes back to his, I dig daggers with my gaze and smile sweet and soft. “No. Thank you. I’m not a fan of nature.” I spin, ready to be done with the conversation when I feel fingers twist around my arm, holding me tight. Too tight. “Why not? What’s wrong with you?” I taste blood. I feel it coating my skin, inside and outside all at once. “Have you ever heard that no means no?” I cringe as he sculpts his face into a pout and puppy eyes me, as if we aren’t grown adults, as if I wasn’t clear enough. I genuinely can’t tell if he’s just so stupid that he simply doesn’t realize what he’s doing, or if he’s pushing me on purpose. What about my body language says I want this? My words don’t paint a picture of some hidden desire to follow him into the woods, I don’t know how to make him understand that I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this.

S

N

A

P.

“Ya know what? Fine. You’re right. I’ll go.” Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. “Yes! I knew you were cool, Delilah!” Time passes, my blood boils, life goes on around me as I solidify myself in place. It’s not okay, I’m not okay, nothing will ever be okay unless I make it okay. “Delilah, live a little! Don’t look so glum! It’s camping, not life in prison.” I choke on quiet laughter until it bubbles out of me and pours off my lips and down my throat. “There ya go sunshine. Keep that chin up!” I wait. I’m patient. I screamed for hours while my lungs filled with dirt, and I survived. I can wait, just a little longer. I don’t remember how we got here, but I feel sun on my cheeks and smell the sweet perfume of summer flowers. I feel present, finally, and it’s just the two of us in silence, watching the wild together. I hear my pulse and remember I’m alive as I use my delicate fingers to grab hold of his thick neck and squeeze. I look into his eyes and smile, hard, until real, warm blood spills from my grinding teeth. I hide my sins in the sand, letting the dirt pass through my fingers and over his body, and nature finally loses its grip on me, it finally lets me go. Maybe camping isn’t as bad as I thought. Maybe, the secrets I’ve buried in the dirt are what will keep me sane. Maybe karma finally worked it’s magic, and this is how it tastes, of blood and dirt and tears. Finally, I let go.