Visualize me, learn me. I am trapped by soil during daylight. I am thinly spread among all of 
earth's sediment. To the unseeing eye, little by little, I drain this planet's nutrients. I am the 
dormant fog with malignant motives and I am that which infiltrates and dismantles the very ground 
you walk. But you'll never know.

Moments before the sun sets my vapor reaches their lilting hands through dirt, their long, pointed 
fingers moving upward after a day of nurturing. It is this time that is most opportune for wasting 
you.

---

Let's be clear: I admire you. I'm enraptured by you. I nearly feel guilty for the privilege I was 
created from, and the frail, powerless existence you never asked for. But I don't feel guilty 
because feeling requires a conscience.

You'll notice me when it becomes difficult to breathe. I'll wrap smoke branches around your waist 
and constrict. Hard. I let off after the first squeeze because you like the aftereffect of 
discovering you're still alive. Before you take the chance to regain your footing, your skin starts 
to smolder because you're enveloped in me. Even your screams are melting.