Tranquility by Ava Seberg
Collage
A Different Kind of Divinity by Jessica Lee
Poetry
The gods care not for your plights;
They are eternal and lovely,
And you--
Dust beneath their feet.
The gods will never know who you are;
Just like a grain of sand upon an infinite shore,
You are nothing--
Nothing at all.
The gods revel in your fear, your awe, your misery;
They laugh, perched on golden thrones,
Wine spilling from their fingertips.
But you--
Not a penny to your name.
But.
There is something beautiful,
Something breathtaking,
In your anonymity.
You are nothing, yes, but also
Everything
All at once--
Ephemeral, fleeting,
Like the memory of a smile,
The echo of laughter,
The scent of jasmine--
You are a starburst,
A gleam of sun,
The glimmer of a dewdrop.
Because how can you be everything
Without being nothing?
How do they know what everything feels like,
If they haven’t anything to compare?
Let me tell you a secret:
If the gods are real,
You should pity them.
Pity their loveliness,
Pity their ignorance--
Pity their golden thrones,
Their wine-slick fingers,
Their mocking laughter.
Pity their immortality.
In your life,
Short as it is,
You learned to feel.
You fell, climbed back up--
With cracked bones and shattered heart,
Blood in your palms and on your face.
You felt everything—weathered life’s storms,
Swam in its rivers and oceans,
Painted its dusks and dawns.
But they feel nothing, see nothing--
To them, life itself is a blur, a smudge.
To us,
To me,
They are nothing.
But you--
You are everything.
- so live unfettered, my dear, with your mortal heart and mortal blood
They are eternal and lovely,
And you--
Dust beneath their feet.
The gods will never know who you are;
Just like a grain of sand upon an infinite shore,
You are nothing--
Nothing at all.
The gods revel in your fear, your awe, your misery;
They laugh, perched on golden thrones,
Wine spilling from their fingertips.
But you--
Not a penny to your name.
But.
There is something beautiful,
Something breathtaking,
In your anonymity.
You are nothing, yes, but also
Everything
All at once--
Ephemeral, fleeting,
Like the memory of a smile,
The echo of laughter,
The scent of jasmine--
You are a starburst,
A gleam of sun,
The glimmer of a dewdrop.
Because how can you be everything
Without being nothing?
How do they know what everything feels like,
If they haven’t anything to compare?
Let me tell you a secret:
If the gods are real,
You should pity them.
Pity their loveliness,
Pity their ignorance--
Pity their golden thrones,
Their wine-slick fingers,
Their mocking laughter.
Pity their immortality.
In your life,
Short as it is,
You learned to feel.
You fell, climbed back up--
With cracked bones and shattered heart,
Blood in your palms and on your face.
You felt everything—weathered life’s storms,
Swam in its rivers and oceans,
Painted its dusks and dawns.
But they feel nothing, see nothing--
To them, life itself is a blur, a smudge.
To us,
To me,
They are nothing.
But you--
You are everything.
- so live unfettered, my dear, with your mortal heart and mortal blood