Gods and Magic

Gods and Magic

We made them both

bright names for the dark,

a language for what refuses to be understood.

-

We are creatures of story,

spinning meaning

the way spiders pull silk from their bellies.

Fragile, glittering,

and always to catch what terrifies.

-

For if there is something

that cannot be touched

or measured,

surely it is dangerous.

-

The unknown

how it stares back at us,

with a face we cannot read.

And so we give it ours.

-

We call it God.

We call it Magic.

We give it hunger, desire,

a body of smoke and light.

Because what does not want

is unbearable.

-

And still

we pit them against each other:

the god who denies magic,

the magic that dissolves god,

as though they were not two halves

of the same unspeakable wish.

-

Not fear,

though it tastes of fear.

Not longing,

though it burns with longing.

-

But the oldest ache,

deep in the marrow:

to believe the world

is speaking to us

and we, somehow,

might understand.