The still water ripples out

Air rushes against my frigid face

So still, the water, so calm. So unlike

the flight symptoms of running;

Pulsating through my veins.

The story of my life.

The prophet of Yahweh

No More.

 

Tarshish- the name most foreign on my lips.

Nineveh- the curse after which I spit.

My enemies or my foreign acquaintances.

To flee God, or choose to openly embrace the worshippers

Of death.

My only two options.

 

The water swells, falls, rushes, crashes.

I awaken to the screams of sailors, 

Shouting to their gods, carving their wrists in worship

And prayer, begging for respite as their life blood slicks their

Filleted wrists.

Begging forgiveness for what only I have done,

These salty men are terrified of my God.

I am as well.

Lots are cast. Dice are rolled.

I am chosen.

Hollow prayers of forgiveness echo in my wooden ears as I 

am tossed into the sea which tastes of my tears.

My bitter heart is content as I hear the howling wind die down.

I would rather die in this

still,

     silent

            ocean

than attempt to save

the Ninevites.

 

Acid leeches into my skin.

Swallowed alive, I slowly burn to death.

My sin the catalyst to this chemic reaction.

The cavity I lie inside of, retracts and contracts as I attempt to

move, to

Free Myself.

This pulsing, living, Red Hell 

that I have become one with,

will be one with,

until at last I reach

The point of eternal sleep.

But it is still better

than Nineveh.

 

I am dying, my skin melting.

Perhaps Nineveh is not so bad.

I finally forfeit, crying out to God.

Bile fills my mouth, and I vomit.

Again and again, my stomach empties, and then-

My surroundings do as well.

Left to rot on the beach, my prison slowly turns and

swims away, leaving behind the scent of bile, rotting

fish, sun scorched seaweed, and rancid human flesh.

 

And here am I.

Nineveh lies before me.

The sea sits placidly behind.

I have no choice now.

And so I set out for the heart of Satan's citadel.

 

My feet dangle from the cliff face.

Lucifer's own will not recieve My Lord's forgiveness.

They have been our enemies for hundreds of years.

They deserve His wrath.

 

The surf crashes once more.

I cringe, forgetting

where I am,

what I am,

who I am.

My pulse, drumming in my heart, in my head, in my fingers,

Is the sound smashing against my ears.

The Will of Yahweh Himself, pounding out a staccato of forgiveness, a

marching army of compassion, a war drum of mercy.

I am a Ninevite, corrupted by my own vile Humanity.

A pagan, worshipping myself instead of Yahweh.

I weep, exhausted

from my race against the Heavens,

and clutch my head to my knees, panting,

As I fill my throat with Eternal Water.