In the beginning, there was nothing,
Not even God.
And then born was chaos,
From which came God and His will.
And from them came humanity.
And from humanity came dissention
From God’s will.
Humanity came to force their interpretation
Of God’s will upon everyone else,
Each a new vision, each misunderstood
Within its domineering view.
God spoke again, but no one listened.

Within the darkness of human civilization came love.
The concept was novel and accepted in
The tiniest of pieces until
Revolution came, and the world fell apart.
“Why shalt thou love one when thou canst
Love anyone thou shalt choose?”
Humanity thought God said,
And so followed upon this “will,”
And the endless wave of people
Crashing upon the world’s shores
Brought a sign interpreted as God’s.
And humanity continued to collapse.

And then I came,
Bathed in a view newly born and exposed,
A new dissent, they said.
Some claimed ignorance for what
They themselves imposed,
Some claimed God’s dissent,
Some claimed the Devil’s work,
Some claimed it never mattered anyway.
I lay alone and claimed nothing.
I moved only because the Earth rotated
By the will of God, and yet I thought
No ill will towards Him.
I had no reason to blame God,
For it was humanity that came to say
“Thou shalt not love.”
Humanity wanted to see only mother/father.
Humanity was not willing to see
Mother/mother, father/father, human/human.
God became non-existent, for humanity
Chose to speak for Him,
Like the dummy impersonating the ventriloquist.
“Thou shalt not love but who we tellst thou to love.”
“Thou shalt stay in thy closet and live not.”
“Thou shalt not be free.”
In broken words I was kept,
Bound further by law created for sanctity,
But grounded in sin.
I became a silent witness to human ignorance.
And
For all its worth
I became Sappho’s mirror.
No one berated me,
For I hid just well enough
To avoid the death squads
That hunt my people down.
I write, I live, I speak,
Though I hide within my island.

Here, now,
I am myself,
And yet changed.
I am not what I am.
Much as I long to live
As God says I shalt live,
Humanity says I shalt not,
And what am I
If not human?
Wing me away, Aphrodite,
“Come to me now again, release me from
This pain, everything my spirit longs
To have fulfilled, fulfill, and you
Be my ally.” (1)

(1: last four lines from the poem “On the throne of many hues, Immortal Aphrodite” by Sappho, translated by Diane Rayor.)