My Corpse Flows Upstream, My Body Flows Down

Cross-legged upon a capsizing boat. I feel the shift of gravity; 

the pull down into the nothingness. Unexpectedly I begin to laugh, 

and my laughter murmurs against the fractures and crevices 

scouring across the ship's deck like a quiet soliloquy in a loud theatre. 

Before me the sea rises, dark tendrils of water snake-like they swerve 

towards me. We were marauders. Scions of pillaging and depravity with 

black spots on our hearts. They called me the Kraken, for I did not just plunder 

ships, I consumed them. My crimes, though heretical in the eyes of God and 

man, still fill my spoilt lungs with elation. The fleet circles like the waiting maw 

of charybdis. I can only pray that they hear my laughter as I know God does. 

The water is pitch as it reaches my legs and it reeks of shit, piss and Kraken blood. 

My last glimpse of the morning star peeking its carona over the horizon; 

the early dawn sky is pink and the clouds hang like jellyfish. As I am swallowed

into the deep my cackling is choked as my mouth is filled with the brine 

of the primordial genesis of the pitiful wretches which preceded me. I named 

my ship The Hanged Man, a tarot after mine own heart. I once wanted to hang 

to death, but drowning tastes just as sweet. I take a troubled breath and greet 

Satan with a full belly.