Digging for Inspiration by Ziyi Yan (14, Connecticut)*

[content warning: self harm]

Our arms bulged, grotesque muscles in just-visible chunks. 

Our veins danced with each push of the dumbbell, 
like shovelling into panting earth.

We imagined snaring grey, jiggling worms in the dirt of the earth.

We imagined letting them crawl up the molding handle,
up our faded button ups, and down our sweat-soaked stretch marks ​

---

Our hands shook with our heartbeats as we lay in bed,
our fingers cramped with the effort of holding.

We dreamt about digging for treasure.

When midnight turned blue, 
we dreamt our fingers were delicate, glinting with gold refractions.
as we dreamt our necks grew sinewy, glinting as well.

When we woke we breathed in gasps, 
each breath shallower before descending back
to the cavern carved in parched ground.

We descended where obsidian inspiration swallowed desert heat–
sunlight compressed to blinding spotlight and amber night light
quaking office lights dimmed to blue lab lights
until darkness.
Our lips bled, each shove of the earth matching a bite of soft flesh.

Who was shoving, who was discovering, who was hurting?

Our pupils glistened but didn’t sparkle, 
gold already forged in the flame of reddened eyes. 

Our throats were deliriously parched,
like arid ground that hardened the deeper we dug–
instead of aquifers, we found bodies pressed to coal, dense with tortured heat.

Before dawn we thought we heard distant minecarts rolling forward, forward, forward...

Our feet were calloused, bare soles against the scorching rocks. 
we grew feet that could not feel,
paper-mache vessels for footsteps. 

Our necks stiffened, and down was all we saw.

We shoved mouthful by mouthful of dirt in our mouths, 
quelled the hunger with diamond pebbles. 
We stored accolades in chests in the attic, never to be re-opened. 

In the mirror our pupils looked dusty, more burnt-out coals than swirling pitch.

We crawled down, digging with rainbow fingernails, 
and we were blind as we eulogized color.

Blind from heat or tears, or too long worshipping a false sun.
No longer were we human, nor even beasts.
No longer was there anything below besides a furnace of fire.

We took the blade to our necks, 
feeling for that hollow space

rusted metal blade breaking the panting earth. 

We awaken to a blaring alarm. 

We awaken to the same sun. ​