open letter to caves

you're dead. okay, you're not dead. but y'know, rocks being alive and growing is a weird thing, but apparently you do it anyway. is that respectful of nature? i don't know. do you care? nah. you're just limestone that makes really nice looking sculptures.

i once went spelunking with a camp group. i suppose this is like delving into the cave organs and hitting them. you probably had intestinal pains that night. sorry about that.

there were ten of us in that group. i don't remember really any of them specifically because i'm self-absorbed and never actually wrote or kept in touch with any of them, despite that i probably told them i would. but i do remember that a part of the group was really surprised that we'd get dirty in the cave. i mean muddy. because, you know, caves are made of mud. you are made of mud. sorry about that. cleanliness has become something we appreciate.

i wore a christmas shirt, one of those ones your grandma gives you in november because she saw it at target and thought that everyone wants a shirt that has a reindeer pun on it. and cave mud is impossible to remove, for the most part. i like to think that the girls who wore their matching camp t-shirts still wear them today with the stains all over them. i hope they have a good story.

but when i went spelunking through your organs, cave, the guide talked a lot about things like cave kisses and good luck and all. apparently, for each drop of water the cave lets on you, you have a year of good luck. this is more of cave drool. but it's good drool.

really, cave, you're the only one who could drool on someone and still have them make it out into some kind of romantic sentiment of good charm and luck.