FALSE GODS

by Spencer Vernier

desperately foraging for a winding hickory grove, curls of auburn running like waterfalls, morning mist, we uncover no answer among the heavenly spires. with our belief that we have replaced the gods, we discover the world holds impossible multiplicity and we are terribly disappointed to face our addiction to oneness. where the human mass seeks to be chided by its asking, we are instead told of the fullness in white walls, told that our attempted self-conquest died upon its birth. writing in stone, we lament, for this creature cannot transcend, and these slabs are our sole sense of permanence; humanity will leave nothing to be held, for no child rests in their cradle eternally. we will always float between ourselves: the version crowned with wholeness and that which is void of anything at all, terrified of the darkness in the mirror as we stand before it in an attempt to conquer crashing tides, and beauty is never true only fleeting like the sand in our cracked hands and the stars in our dying eyes.