god

there was a god who stood beside me as a child
who held my hand while we wandered through the trees
he smoked a cigarette and drove a chevrolet
and oh how he sighed when the filter hit the ground

but one cloudy day, the god gave me a gift:
a pair of opal eyes, that let me see the world
as it truly is, through his own divine perspective
in every single little spec of dust

i put in the eyes, but then he was gone
and the colors had faded from the street
my hands grew lines, my hair became white
and behind every corner hid lies, blood, and stones

my home became a wasteland of piled up bricks
a sewer filled with foolishness and greed
the sidewalk was damp and the passersby were dry
but they say "this is how it was & how it's always gonna be"

so on a cloudy day, in the graveyard of my dreams
i visited the site of a man, a former god
and with a burning heart, i knelt there, by the grave
and cursed the corpse beneath for the curse it put on me

july 25, 2021