dead gods at the bottom of the sea
(originally written apr. 11th, 2022)
dear diary, today i killed a god, i twisted my knife
into his lungs so all he could breathe was blood
and choke on the hot air before he fell into the
sea, his corpse drifted below the phytoplankton
and the clownfish and the sea anemones and the
eels and the sharks and the titanic’s old bones,
he reached the bottom, bubbles of boiling blood
spilling out of his body into a stream that led me
right back to him, where the tardigrades and goblin
sharks and angler fish made a shrine for the
dead man at the bottom of the ocean, and even
beyond the grave he answered their prayers and
healed the sick and fed the poor and didn’t hear a
word i spat in his face, my prayers unanswered and
forgotten, this man made a mockery of me but his soul
lives on, like a whale dropping dead, gracefully
sinking into the abyss and sending the sand up in waves
for centuries before they can fall to rest again
commentary
inspired by the concept of a whalefall, where a whale dies and sinks to the bottom of the ocean and provides food and shelter for a lot of different kinds of marine life. except in this poem, it's based on a person + my relationship with christianity.