The woods don’t want you—
not really.
They just let you in
like a body takes a bullet:
no choice,
just impact.

You cross the tree line
and the air changes—
heavier,
wet with rot and breath
and things that watch
but don’t blink.

Sunlight gets torn up
before it hits the ground.
Nothing clean here.
Nothing kind.

The dirt’s not dirt—
it’s ash,
bone,
old blood that forgot
whose it was.

You think you’re hiking.
The forest thinks you’re meat.
It’s patient.
It has time.

Even the silence
feels like it’s growling,
low and steady—
a sound your body knows
but your brain
can’t name.

Out here,
your name
means less than bark,
less than the beetle
eating it.

And the deeper you go,
the more the world you came from
starts to feel
like the dream.