I felt you in my mind, you pelagic lecher, your heavy fingers pressed against the pleasure centers of my brain as the white bull drove into me. Your hand lifted when he was spent, and I knew what I had done — what you had made me do.

I repudiate you. I spurn you. I spit on your gifts, king of the salt spring. They were right who chose sweet olives over your bitter sea. Least of your brothers, you rage and slap against the land and people you gambled away. Weep, winedark fool, for what you lost and cannot have, for the love you can never earn, never feel. You can compel our worship, but not our affection; who could care for you without fear to drive them?

I have felt its teeth gnawing inside my womb, its infant horns tearing at my walls. Gestation was a horror, birth an atrocity, to be coopted by your wrath, reduced to breeding stock for the exaltation of your name. Here on this beach I return your son to you. May you find joy of him beneath the waves; he shall not have a home above them.