Under the ocean
Next to a boiling vent
He moves his tail
Earth’s first resident

The valley floods
And we all run away
Drains out again
Come back and plant the grain

He rises up
Up from a benthic plume
The earth splits up
And it’s all over too soon

And it all goes dark
In the blink of an eye
No one around
Except you and I…

And paper burns
But it’s alright
These old books
Can give us light

Fumbling blind
I caught a flash of light
Outlining your features
Just one last time

And I gripped your hand and asked again
If it would be okay
To tell you about something long ago
That might seem rather strange

“There’s something that’s inside of me
Underneath my skin
And I think I know exactly who
To blame for putting it in.”

I gripped her hand--
Mine rough as sand--
“And I hope you don’t mind
If I bring it up all the time.”

“It burns through my bones and turns me to rust
And makes me feel like I’m about to collapse into dust
And I know the things it’ll do it if fucking breaks free
I know for a fact because that thing is me.”

“It’s not who I like, and it’s not who I want
But at this exact moment, he’s all that I’ve got
Sometimes I wonder if this was part of the plan
To test to see who I truly am.”

“I fumbled blind through a little white lie
To see how far I could go--”
She raised a hand to my lips and said
“I already know.”

“I know that it pains you
And I know that it hurts
Regardless, that’s not how I want
To spend my last night on earth.”

“And I know that’s not
What you want to do, too.”
She was totally right.
The bitch fucking knew.

I heard a laugh--bark from the dark--
“That’s all in the past.
For the moment, I’d like to see
How long this moment lasts.”

And I told her stories, singing strange
All up until the dawn
Found out we had settled out
On some neighbor’s lawn

The fissure cracked the earth in half
As deep as one could see
A gaping maw of dirt and rock
Made like gnashing teeth