The Wreck of the S.S. Marian

[ssmarian]

why am i always drawn towards that which threatens me?

what could compel me that i approach it so?

it lies at the root of all fears, that lengthy sleep,

so why do i still approach?

sometimes it feels better to sink.

so i let go, allow myself to fall

the descent is slow. and it feels better this way

so down i sink, and higher i soar.

after all, don't i deserve this?

the warmth? the cold?

she whispers to us, and we won't listen to her.

we call her different names.

the call of the void-

the rapture of the deep-

but there's something she knows that we don't.

i'm seeing it now, the closer i dive to her.

my breathing quickens its feverish pace-

the trench echoes my own ecstatic prophecy back at me.

dionysus held the dolphin as a holy animal,

a blessing to those who had wronged him,

and i'll join his maenad's euphoric, dizzy dance

as i sink into intoxication,

like a torpedo into torpor.

then i awake, dry, warm, breathing,

watching through a window

as she waves to me, beckons, begs,

breathless in ecstacy, lust, desire

the siren's song can't reach me from up here

but i still want to serve,

to sink down,

down,

down,

and meet her.

------------------------

Rapture, commissioned by @acrushonesmeralda

[ssmarian]

i've always felt alone

always felt in the dark

hidden away from the tides that pull everyone else

together.

but the world is so full

of light, and sound, and care,

and i've just found one of its desolate corners

without.

everyone i've met

is just as lonely as i

so i pull, i beg, i beckon, like a beacon in the night

hungry

and they find me, grateful,

kneeling, desperate for this

connection for which we've both been starved and

then

i snap, i lunge, i tear, i beg, you won't leave, you won't, i won't let you, please, stay,

and he says it back,

snap, lunge, tear, beg, deny, decry, demand, desire, deride, derivative. destructive. deleterious.

only one of us would leave alive

we knew this from the beginning,

trailing the memories of lovers behind me like

jewelry,

accoutrements of lives before,

dreams of agapé that drain me

the ones that never got away, and he stays there too, saying

"i saw your light

i came

no matter how it ended,

it started."

‐---------------------------

Light, commissioned by @serenefig

[ssmarian]

i've always felt alone

always felt in the dark

hidden away from the tides that pull everyone else

together.

but the world is so full

of light, and sound, and care,

and i've just found one of its desolate corners

without.

everyone i've met

is just as lonely as i

so i pull, i beg, i beckon, like a beacon in the night

hungry

and they find me, grateful,

kneeling, desperate for this

connection for which we've both been starved and

then

i snap, i lunge, i tear, i beg, you won't leave, you won't, i won't let you, please, stay,

and he says it back,

snap, lunge, tear, beg, deny, decry, demand, desire, deride, derivative. destructive. deleterious.

only one of us would leave alive

we knew this from the beginning,

trailing the memories of lovers behind me like

jewelry,

accoutrements of lives before,

dreams of agapé that drain me

the ones that never got away, and he stays there too, saying

"i saw your light

i came

no matter how it ended,

it started."

‐---------------------------

Light, commissioned by @serenefig

[ssmarian]

i throw my net with calm and practiced hand,

an act of desperation may it be,

as given to that boundless end of land,

that gaping maw of foam, the cursed sea

i hope to bring a bounty back, perhaps

a school, no, less- no, something just to eat

poseidon grins and bid my plans collapse-

and thus reclines upon his pearled seat.

time and time again he sees me fight,

i strategize but still he finds my fault

my body and my tears fall in the night-

my body and my tears rejoin the salt.

[100snakes]

a mermaid with expensive taste

[flagellant]

@ssmarian marian dear look what your niece is getting up to

[ssmarian]

when i drowned

i met someone.

it wasn't god- not really.

what kind of a god would it have been?

when i drowned

we spoke

and he never faced me.

maybe it was shame-

at himself or at his creation, were he the demiurge.

but he faced away.

i only saw his back.

when i drowned

the crushing weight of the world's oceans

covered my corpse like a blanket.

wet, cold, i sank to the muck

and now i pull that blanket taut around me

as i shiver, looking at god's back.

she won't even face me.

when i drowned

they spoke.

in tongues no human has spoken for millenia

and in ones yet well known

but never in mine.

they asked if it was my fault.

when i drowned

i don't remember falling

though i wish i could have

i do, however, remember

when i threw myself aside

when i drowned

god never met my gaze

it stood solitary

expecting an answer when

none came.

it raised its arms to the world it made

when i drowned

i prayed for breath

pulling icy water into a sacred, soft place

buried in my chest where only air was meant to live

and god saw

for i invited the water inside

and god knew

when i drowned

god, arms outstretched

spoke again

he said

what of this world did not satisfy you

he said

what of this earth was not fascinating

each budded flower a gift

each tree a canopy, a roof, a shelter

each fruit, distinct in its saccharine nature

when i drowned

she said

what here that i made hurt you so

and i could not reply, knowing nothing did

she said

what would've cradled you safely that i didn't offer

and i couldn't reply

because she made my family

she made my ship

she made my life jacket

and yet none of it held me upright

when i drowned

they let their arms drop to the side

and spoke again

in a mourning murmur

this world was never perfect

for if it was

the fruit would lose its sweetness

the flower, its beauty

the trees, their strength

your ship, its spirit.

but this world

they said

was never meant to harm you.

when i drowned

it took a sorrowful tone

its voice a dirge to proclaim my passing

and it asked what else it could've done for me

it gave me the world

and

i still drowned

when i drowned

i couldn't answer.

he hadn't hurt me.

his creations brought the only light to my life.

she hadn't condemned me.

her works were flawless in their design.

they hadn't ruined me.

their world ran like clockwork, however rusted.

it hadn't forsaken me.

its affections weren't wasted.

when i drowned

god sighed

and said

it's okay.

i'm here now.

you're safe with me.

when i drowned

god kneeled.

he outstretched a hand in front of him

as if she wanted me to hold it for her

but they had never faced me

and it never moved towards me.

god waited for me to grab on

but i couldn't

i was behind him

and she waited patiently

their efforts for vain,

its time again wasted on me.

and i fell backwards, pulled under the waves,

as god kneeled, beautiful hand outstretched.

as i drowned

god never moved

but i could never reach

so i just looked up

forever

and i could see that

the world was fascinating.

it couldn't hurt me anymore

i had nothing more the world could take

and it could take nothing from me.

[ssmarian]

they hooked me,

grabbed me with their lures and nets and lead weights,

and dragged me,

unwilling,

but did i not still swim up to meet them?

was it not my fault i was hooked,

caught,

was it not my actions?

when i bit for the bait,

did i not doom myself?

[ssmarian]

isn't every ship bound to sink? even those we knew as the strongest. those we believed would always glide across those largest boundaries between landmasses. those vast distances, those chasms of endless, murky black. sable, as the light is restrained, pulled back, by the gallons upon gallons of otherwise crystalline water. these- it is these that we built ships to vanquish.

we thought we could kill it. for so long, it stood in our way, in some form or another. the swiftest rivulets couldn't keep us apart, we decided. so we put ourselves to the test.

they used to be so simple. they effortlessly sliced across those oceans, like a razor sails across a face, like an axe cuts through a fallen log.

we were never strong enough to fight our strongest foes. here be dragons, we said, so we crafted this lancelot to kill it. tar, wood, nails, flax, we scrapped together this paladin to save us.

they all fall eventually, just as achilles. our empires of cloth and board fell under siege of the waves, and we were never strong enough to win. but we kept building. we kept developing. we kept trying for as long as we could.

the ocean still sits where she always had. she still grabs us. she snatches us away in ways we still can't fight. we don't know if she revels in it. we cannot taste her glee, nor her wrath. all we can taste are tears. we don't know whose they are.

so build another boat, little one. maybe this one will sail smoothly. guide her gently, like a dagger. perhaps this one will slay that eternal host who kept us apart. find the soft underbelly of creation, and pierce onwards, guided by the winds, by steam, by hope, by despair. maybe you'll die a hero's death, or maybe that of a coward. but the choice is clear.

die at her hands, reaching, and outstretched, and hopeful. or sit back and dry rot like a boat never sailed.

[ssmarian]

i swam in the ocean the other day, and a small isopod made a feast of my tongue.

it didn't hurt as much as i feared it would.

she was gentle and kind, belaying herself in my jaws with all the lissomeness of a loose tooth.

fearing the harm i would do to excommunicate her, i allowed her to stay.

she fed only lightly when i did, so we both found comfort in nutrition.

we were not friends, but neither enemies.

passably symbiotic, commensalism at its most genuine,

adelphopoiesis most holy.

i was her legs, i was her jaws, i was her chitin and her board

and she was variety, a new voice to interpret my thoughts to.

she never preached- it was only my voice which rang out

when i parted my lips to speak.

one day, however, my limbs weighed upon me as brine collects at the bottom of the sea,

as an anchor drags a ship to a stop,

as the maw of a shark finds purchase in prey.

that day, she walked for me, not invigorating me, but keeping my head afloat.

i became able to move in the strongest of currents as she guided me along.

when someone asked how i felt, her voice overcame mine for the first time

and the gospel with which i replied was copied from the words of the apostate.

assuming she knew best, i settled for her testimony.

but she found solace in her newfound words.

she sat in the pulpit, speaking as she willed it, answering the questions

i found hardest to describe.

more and more often this false prophet gave my loved ones judas' kiss

until i found it hard to believe my own words.

to speak my own truth.

once, i was asked how i felt about someone

and she dug her talons into my teeth, pressing them shut with all the force of a closing tomb.

and our silence spoke volumes.

she grew willful, my whore of babylon,

and she still does.

i do fear the day she will close my jaws forever

and revel in my silence as we starve to death together.

[ssmarian]

and oh, the ocean is an endless expanse of brackish water. some thrive in it, truly, but others suffocate. is the ocean a metaphor? is it fair to call anything that is real a metaphor?

the ocean can be love- endless, unrelenting, reaching for the moon despite the distance. but the ocean has taken so many lovers from each other. or is the wind to blame for filling a ship's sails?

the ocean can be warmth- all-encompassing, nurturing, boiling up from vents in the deep. but the ocean can also be so, so cold. or are the icebergs to blame for forming in her?

the ocean can be time- eternal, here before and after us, high and low tide. but the ocean will change with the slightest disturbance. or are the waves to blame for parting to a thrown rock?

the ocean can be life- unrelenting, all-encompassing, high and low tide. but the ocean has drowned so many. or are we to blame for commodifying a primal force of nature that we need to live?

is the harm you have enacted upon me real? can i call it a metaphor? or am i to blame myself for the poetic ennui of your grasping waves?

we cannot blame that which follows its nature. but we can blame it for the nature it has created for itself. send your tides back from whence they came- this sargassum-soaked seashore will become a sprawling forest in time, and you shall never drown me again.

[ssmarian]

ancient sailors roamed the waters, surfing the seafoam, boats cutting through the surface like each fang of a shark pierces its final meal

beneath each damned wave, the kraken writhes. what has it to do but wait? the sailors will come again, bearing treasure, lives, accoutrements

the kraken has no need for them. it could care less. the kraken only has want for the sheer joy of the hunt

sailors pray. constantly. the words of their final plight fall on only the deaf ears of the monster in the deep. but doesn't it need to feed too? the kraken still hungers. it's alive too

two life forms still live. but which is good? which is bad. the sailor's prayers fall only on the deaf ears of what is only another living being. but as the sailor's flesh is rent from her bones is she expected to succumb? to smile, knowing her demise is the catalyst of the continuation of another soul? or is she allowed to feel pain, no matter how selfish

[ssmarian]

leap, icarus. dive. you are not instructed to take up a life jacket without reason. without caution. without fear. the inky seas wish not to harm you, but their writhing ways rarely regard you. you are likely to be hurt, my love. just as you fear being dashed upon the rocks, so have many others. they all leapt regardless. so, so many have leapt. to breach the surface of the water, particle by particle, arms outstretched, this is to know, my love. to know fear and to know joy. there is no purer joy, my love. ecstacy immeasurable lies only beneath the waves. so many others have found it, my love, and they beckon.

leap, icarus, dive. though the sun's corona scalds and boils, the crests and crowns of each royal wave shall shield you. life goes on, regardless, as you stand on the cliff and postulate to yourself. seafoam dashes against the rocks, dragging back towards the seaside like blood off a blade.

so leap, icarus. dive. rejoin the many who have found the edge of the map where dragons lie. for you are a castaway, my love. take it to heart and cast your life jacket away. purpose awaits. love awaits. but above and beneath all else, my love, the ocean awaits. she is patient, and she will wait. you stand on the cliff, terrified, and she yet waits for you.

so leap, icarus.

dive.

[ssmarian]

twenty thousand years. the atoll, swallowed alive, but merely that long.

aldabra rail. life is fleeting, restricted. constrained. life is yet pressure-packed beneath. sandy seafloor sediment solidifies survival, setting safety starboard side, seclusion sneaking silently, solemnly, serenely, somewhere secret.

twenty thousand years.

the aldabra rail.

to drink of the styx and come back up for air is a feat never replicated.

twenty thousand years, and he returns. the land lay waiting, expectantly.

having escaped the whale's jaws, jonah lies in wait for nineveh to repent. and nineveh repented.

the aldabra rail, twenty thousand years lazarus, repented. the bird returned to the atoll, bound and chained to the soil. but jonah waited.

will i wait the centuries too?

[ssmarian]

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and gaze into the sea renouncing a lost love, what you don't know is that they never loved you.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and gaze into the sea renouncing a lost love, what you don't know is that the sea looks back at you.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and gaze into the sea renouncing a lost love, what you don't know is that the sea still loves you.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and gaze into the sea renouncing a lost love, what you don't know is that the exotic things still living beneath the waves, those too alien to be human yet far too human to be otherworldly, they gaze back, eyes meeting yours from leagues past your vision. and they dont feel love, but they feel something incomprehensible. and they feel it for you.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and gaze into the sea preaching a new love, what you know is that they love you.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and gaze into the sea renouncing a lost love, what you don't know is that the sea gazes back at you.

and as you stand on the sandy shore and gaze into the sea renouncing a lost love, what you don't know is that they never loved you.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and gaze into the sea renouncing a lost love, what you don't know is that the sea churns, boils with righteous fury. she will avenge. he wants revenge. they will protect you.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and gaze into the sea renouncing a lost friend, what you don't know is what they never considered you.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and cry to the sea, what you don't know is that they never loved you.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and cry to the sea, what you don't know is that the sea cries back.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and cry to the sea, what you don't know is that the sea is made of tears, those of man, dinosaur, cetacean, and deities thought long plunged into the gorges of memory, and the sea cries back.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and cry to the sea, the sea cries back.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and cry to the sea, what you don't know is that they love you.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and cry to the sea, what you don't know is that we love you.

and as they stand on the gravelly shore, renouncing you, what they dont know is the sea is done crying.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and cry to the sea, what you don't know is that i love you.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and cry to the sea, what you don't know is that we all love you.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and cry to the sea, what you don't know is that we always loved you.

and as they stand on the gravelly shore, renouncing you, what they don't know is that the sea is watching.

and as they stand on the gravelly shore, renouncing you, what they don't know is that the sea is listening.

and as they stand on the gravelly shore, renouncing you, what they don't know is that the sea is crying.

and as they stand on the gravelly shore, renouncing you, what they don't know is that the sea is tired of crying.

and as they stand on the gravelly shore, renouncing you, what they don't know is that the sea is drained of salt. the water becomes fresh, to the detriment of the world. the water becomes palatable, but the life within suffocates for but a second.

and as they stand on the gravelly shore, renouncing you, what they don't know is that the salt has concentrated.

and as they stand on the gravelly shore, renouncing you, what they don't know is that the salt is now a spear.

and as they stand on the gravelly shore, renouncing you, what they don't know is that the salt is strong.

and as they stand on the gravelly shore, renouncing you, what they don't know is that the salt is sharp.

and as they kneel on the gravelly shore, renouncing themselves, what they don't know is that the sea is not giving mercy.

and as they cry on the gravelly shore, renouncing thenselves, what they don't know is that the sea is tired of crying.

and as they lay on the gravelly shore, renouncing themselves, what they don't know is that the sea is watching.

and as they lay on the gravelly shore, renouncing themselves, what they don't know is that the sea is reviving. salt decrystallizes and exits them, once more becoming liquid within the brine.

and as they, what they don't know is that the sea is eternal.

and as they, what they don't know is that they aren't anymore.

and as they die on the gravelly shore, what they realize is that the sea will outlive us all. but this time the sea chose that they would not outlive anyone ever again.

and as you stand on the gravelly shore and gaze into the sea renouncing a lost love, what you don't know is that the sea loves you.

what you don't know is that the sea loves you.

what you know is that the sea loves you.

what the sea knows is you love it, too.

what the sea knows

the sea knows you.

[ssmarian]

Hail to the SS Marian. We are wondering if you have any lost souls down there and if so may we come to collect them , we offer a days worth of air to be used sparingly

hah. air, hm? offer the worm the clouds, what will he do with it? offer a shark space, it finds no use. no, the others have allpassed on. i alone remain anchored here.

[ssmarian]

Greetings, Marian. Have you anything medical related down there? I'm looking to sprouse up my waiting room, so nothing that is potentially dangerous. I offer a bag of silver chalices and a vial of unknown acids. (Clinical)

@clinical-manners

leeches and the ship’s record from the first pirate doctor. set sail ahoy land ho and all that

[flagellant]

@clinical-manners if you want i can make a nice abstract sculpture from the leeches. medical history and whatnot. a nice plaque 

[clinical-manners]

Thank you but no Thank you, Innkeeper. You would probably just steal my property again.

[ssmarian]

ah, i do so love sculpture. are you sure, nurse?

[ssmarian]

Greetings, Marian. Have you anything medical related down there? I'm looking to sprouse up my waiting room, so nothing that is potentially dangerous. I offer a bag of silver chalices and a vial of unknown acids. (Clinical)

@clinical-manners

leeches and the ship's record from the first pirate doctor. set sail ahoy land ho and all that