(title from The Strangest Things In The World, 1958)

if you had lived

your whole life underground

never wanting for the sun

would you find a heaven

closer to the core

veins of unbelievable gemstones

moss and mushrooms lighting their own way

forming their own network

the shining eyes of other things

living in darkness

countless droplets of grit

falling below the fallen

brushing edges with where

old gods sleep

could it be there are temples

and palaces carved deep

into caverns not yet explored

are they already inhabited

by humanoids with faith and questions

not unlike our own

would they be called earthlings for living

closer to the planet than we do

be curious about the surface

call it outer space or the edge of the world

as they revolve around the molten core

a buried daylight the center holds

feeling the weight of our growing oceans

might they turn back

to mapping their own galaxies in earnest

saying all that could be

up there is bleached bones

anything of worth makes it way down

as it decomposes so let the future be

slow inevitable and unknown

we live between the heartbeats of deities

the blinks and we assign them planets

in our myths what if the earth too

is godlike the gems the droplets

the magma the mushrooms and

the shiny eyed unnamed things

all moving together like star systems like cells

earth a holy organism in this fetal curling shape

___

MYKKI RIOS is a queer genderfluid Mexican-American witer, performer and multimedia artist. Raised in Chicago, and having lived many places across the globe, they recently returned home to the Windy City. Mykki has had works featured in issues of Welter, Meat For Tea: The Valley Review, HAD, BRUISER Mag, Blood + Honey, and more. They were also a finalist in Lupercalia Press' 2022 Chapbook Series Contest. Their poems have been nominated for the Monarch Queer Literary Awards and the Pushcart Prize. X- @abbisynths IG- @abbisynths Bsky- @mykkirioswrites