Reveries of Heresy

Surely, there lies an immanent core anchored somewhere in this chasm? It swells through roiling hills and vales; a ravine veils the riverbed’s repose. But Eros conspires with the Fates, hurling me headlong through rapids— lovers surge in turbulent throes, and somehow, blindsided by a precipice— I plunge,     limbs flailing,         into the throat of Styx. What’s the point of being prized a rare pearl amidst the silt, then pulverised on a whim—devalued: sham nacre, stripped of lustre? If love is a river, let it be known: I am ravaged by your torrents. Intensity is the counterfeit of love; an undertow that never quenches. So bathe me in gentle streams: Everglades. And if my love takes eras to cascade, at least she’ll run clear, winnowed through cypress knees— a quiet bedrock, unyielding.

That one is a dust mote in the cosmos—  a truism we soothe ourselves with. But have you forgotten? To trillions of lilliputians, you are Gulliver: a superorganism. A biome of moist, meandering terrain, billions of microbes wriggling through the labyrinth of your belly; Endless fields of skin where demodex mites burrow, hatching eggs in subterranean oil pools. Even the mitochondrion in my cells was once a roving creature, engulfed, entangled by our ravenous ancestor. A heretic would concede— Mark 5:9 is true: we are many; I am legion. So if you deny kindness to this fragile, warm-blooded vessel, deny it knowingly to the legion within— who labour, divide, die; co-keepers of our fleeting lives.

Theia, Earth’s first love, you set her into eternal motion, and birthed our blessed moon. Four billion years ago, you coalesced with Earth in a glancing blow, you heralded the first note by pulling the gravitational bow, kicking up the raw dust in this waltz of orbital scars. Forgotten goddess, invisible knot in the galaxy’s skein; all life traces its pulse back to you, surging to the rhythm of your pull, your tides, your seasons, hidden muse. Theia, Earth’s first love, rest deep beneath the ocean bed while we strive and toil overhead. Your work is complete; Selene is your legacy— she will withstand long after sapiens wither into antiquity. Theia, Earth’s true love, you balanced her axis, and taught her to endure. Sleep now beneath the ocean bed, as Lethe slowly wanes away: each breath, each ash, the core.

Could one have a memory  of a life never lived?  Mist clinging to my pores, dew trickling down my cheek, my body sinks deep into the moss beneath. Willows sway gently above the swamp, light seeping slyly through foliage, the gleam of a salamander’s skin. Fairy inkcaps sprout unbidden from decaying logs, a hidden home for earwigs and slugs raising their family in the dark. Enshrouded and sodden as my soul, these creatures, knowing, soothe  more deeply  than humans hands ever could. If so, how could they be but a memory of a life never lived…

Why would a being with bones forged in supernova, stardust rippling through her veins, need a planet to orbit her gravity; a watchful sentry to keep her safe? Why would a boundless ocean, depths darker than nightmares, need an anchor to tether, or a dam to hinder her; a bejewelled cage masquerading as home? To be loathed is to be lissomely liberated; to be rejected is to be reverently rerouted; to be abandoned is to be embraced in inner authority and authenticity And in that knowing, unearth the sacred North Star within, reunite with your old friend from the womb of your tomb— a teardrop merging with the ocean, returning at last to yourself, the home you’ve always cradled within