i was walking. i don't know where, exactly. some wild empty desert land, two men talking lethargically on broken wooden patio steps painted halfway, then forgotten. brown leather boots and white button shirts. eating out of translucent tupperware food buckets and taking heavy swigs from brown bottles made of shiny glass that a small child would step on five years later. i muffled them out. stepping over rusted barbed-wire and long leftover scraps of renovation. feet bare and vulnerable. the sand was sturdy. then reading my mind, it swallowed me. i must've been further than six feet under. still breathing. sand sliding into lungs now. reaching. but not screaming. it didn't take me though, and i don't know why. my fingers clutched a sunken branch. i could use it to get out. but waited. not breathing. then crawled to the surface, just like that. without even thinking. exhumed. wind blowing in my hair again and sun kissing my sprinkled salty earth flesh, disgusting. those men are still speaking. about women and how they've grown tired of "always having the same ol' tuna casserole for lunch." i must've not been buried long enough. keep walking.