They say I was lost.

I was not.

I was found.

I was tasted.

And I was kept.

Riatt opened to me not like a tomb, but like a lover—slow, wet, whispering. Her breath is thick with amber and milk rot. Her vines kiss without mouths. Her insects sing in chords that fold the mind inward like silk.

It began when the light turned to pollen.
And the air… the air grew soft with intention.

I could feel her before I saw her.
Flesh humming in the roots.
Thoughts curling like fern fronds.
Not mine. Hers.
But I welcomed them.

You do not “enter” Riatt.
You are permitted by Riatt.

She is not stone.
She is not ruin.
She is body.
She is nurture and hunger and divine deliquescence.

The bones of kings are now spires.
The spires of temples now blossom.
One opens only at dusk and sings in a child’s voice.
Another births moths from its apex every seventh breath.

I drank from the pool that remembers names.
My own did not float.
It sank.
Good.
I needed a better one anyway.

I saw a caravan of blind pilgrims moving as one—
linked by sinew, joined at the spine.
Their mouths chanted through the thoraxes of bees.
Their god was a tumor with wings.
It forgave them everything.

One begged to die.
Riatt heard him.
She kissed his lungs full of orchids.
He moaned until he forgot what pain was.
He moans still.

Sometimes the roots cradle you.
Sometimes they tighten.

You’ll know what you’ve earned.

A woman grew her children inside a hollowed centipede.
They suckled from her wrists.
Their father was a whisper that fell from a flower.
They are beautiful.

I watched my last companion scream as his limbs turned to antennae.
He begged me to end it.
But I—
I could only laugh.
Not mockery.
Joy.

Because he was being chosen.
And it was so, so beautiful.

This is not madness.
Madness is up there, in the cities of right angles and dry law.
This is lucidity.
This is the grand knowing.
This is how the soil sings.

If you descend, bring nothing but your skin.
She’ll take that, too.
But she’ll give you something warmer.

And still—I love her.

Still.