An Ode to Muses to Polyhymnia

Moses

Our introduction started with a murder.

I prayed and prayed,

Assuring myself that I was unworthy of God's mercy.

I thought in a haze of trembles,

Of the sins I have committed,

The selfishness I have exhibited,

And the love I have prohibited.

Not worthy of retribution,

I condemned myself for the loss of a blessing.

Though our omniscient creator knows the truth of our faults,

And doesn't demand perfection,

He witnessed our success in going against his word.

I may not have committed your sin with my hands,

But am equal to you in weight.

I thought death would release me from the chains binding my freezing heart and empty womb.

I could not continue as a continuous burden,

Yet, the agony of my loss would be worse.

So, I stayed trapped in my own dynamic nightmares without a reason to resist,

Until one day, I saw the minion of darkness.

He came to me in slumber where the sea was rich with ash.

I was transported from the shore to a platform in the middle of a storm,

Amongst the waves in the tar-colored ocean, ominous clouds, and rain with a rebellious vengeance.

I knew I could launch myself below for an escape, but hesitated at a glance of the edge.

Then, I saw it,

His veil of black magic, floating, lurking, waiting.

Then, coming up in a tornado of suffocation,

I was engulfed in a war.

I decided, for once, to fight.

I observed my figure rising from an incline,

Each blow prompting white light out of it.

The hooded demon wrapped around me as a viper does to prey.

Trying to harness my breath,

My shell was fading out of existence with each angle and redacted scream.

She couldn't hear me,

I pleaded for her to open her eyes before her nose touched the ceiling.

I won.

I was alive with a layer of sweat drenching my skin and cotton sticking to my chest.

All of a sudden, I saw the world in bloom.

I put to use the legs he gave me to walk,

Emerald eyes to observe the beauty of spring,

All while truly hearing his voice.

I had been a malefactor far removed from grace.

I was saved.

With the Holy Spirit's descent,

I was given the tenacity to live,

As my savior did to all his children.

After days of inhaling cigarette smoke, favoring a quicker death,

Laying on the bathroom tile covered in blood,

And shivering until my fingers felt frigid,

I was warm.

I suffered, though you did too.

This anger and frustration we carry is not without merit,

For we solidified our spirit through the will of God.

If not for the bitterness of time,

I couldn't have been his flawed prophetess.

Oh, Moses, you and I are one.

We were chosen without choice for forgiveness,

Not aligning with our own desires,

Not regarded as worthy through our stutters,

Not able to see what we are.

This past of yours stained your soul,

Though now, you have been washed with the parting of the Red Sea.

My transgressions left a miracle unable to reach this Earth,

Yet I touched his robe through faith.

As I begged for sweet release from the prison I built,

I was saved instead.

As you sailed in infant wails, doomed to meet an unjust fate,

You were saved instead.

You became great after a moral indiscretion left you unclean.

He has a plan to make me great too.