sometimes all you can raise is dust
you are born when you begin seeking—breast milk, binkie, power, purpose. what are you hungry for? the hand that feeds you isn’t big enough for you to bow down to, and you’d rather starve than swallow the pride scriptures claimed would eventually kill you in the end. you are destined for the purest water, the freshest bread, not the discount wine and stale host you've been fed since there was a divide in the waters. you’ve never tasted greatness, but you’d recognize the smell—flesh burning, is your skin aflame?—so your nostrils guide you. for six days, you hunt for glory. he is hunched over in the corner, sobbing. when he sees you, he reaches out a hand, asks for help, you retract—he will only drag you down. on the seventh day, you look for clarity. you flock to famine, search for a shepherd, genuflect before a rock, kick it when it doesn’t grant you miracles because it’s just granite, just igneous, just melted magma, and goddamnit, you can’t make gods out of everything. still, you place it in your palm, raise it high, testify: this is what will save me. you are so certain, you are so confident, you are so desperate because you know you will never run out of gravel to kneel to, you will never be out of water to drown in, so why not try to hold your breath?