Rise up

I wish I could stay down here.

Crouched down, fingers fumble through the dirt for roots on renegade blades of grass and the few remaining dandelions. I'm safe. I'm down here almost on all four, near the bees that buzz for some late season sweet, near the calls of birds burrowing for worms, near the crackle of new fallen leaves that I don't clear away. No, those are good, I leave them. Behind the tall bank of zinnias and marigolds I am hidden, like a wild animal watching from cover.

Up there, upright on two legs, are people looking to interrupt me and take a bite out of my day. They want to talk about something I'm sure I don't care about. They come at me with need in their eyes. Would I like to go out? for coffee maybe? sometime? no.

Up there is a world of worry where I have to go home to the dark forrest of moving boxes I now inhabit. Up there is fatigue. Up there is that funny nausea I woke up with and don't really care to think about. Up there my headache returns. Up is responsibility and I just don't feel like going there.

So I stay down, pulling out the stray runners of wild strawberry, tugging at the grass, feeling the leaves and touching the petals, sniffing the sweet musk of dirt and eavesdropping on the birds until Glory comes walking over in a costume the color of marigolds. Rise up. Rise up.