you’ve written a couple of poems about them, so can you talk about your feelings on atlas and prometheus? i feel like they have such incredible potential in their narratives and you’re one of the first people i’ve seen to compare them

darshanasuresh:

i. for two titans, their humanity is overwhelming. 

ii. prometheus stands chained to the rock like a masthead of a ship. his shoulders shake & tremble and he screeches like & alongside & at the eagle (that’s all he has for company, anyway).

iii. atlas shakes & trembles just as much, his knees almost touching the ground. he holds the heavens. he holds the celestial spheres. he holds so much, & yet he is so lonely.

iv. prometheus gave & gave, and he thinks about this as he keens in pain. he has too much time to think, always too much, and too little to do. he thinks about the fire he cupped in his palms. about how while the mortals scurry far far below him, he is left caged despite being out in the open. he thinks about the bones he made the gods pick and he laughs. he laughs as his liver is torn open. he thinks and he laughs. he starts looking forward to the time each day when the eagle returns, because that way he has something to scream about. someone to scream to.

v. atlas uncovers the time heracles took his burden slowly, slowly, slowly, like a starving man saving his last morsel of food. it’s not the pain he minds so much, not the weight on his back that is pushing him towards the ground. it teaches him something about his spine, something about how it curves & curves and still somehow remains unsnapped. no, what he minds is the groaning urge to run, to run, to run. what he minds is his inability to do so. he remembers when heracles took his place with a thirst that overshadows the heavens.

vi. prometheus wonders if he would still do the same if he could go back, but then he remembers the future, the one where heracles comes and releases him, and he bellows instead. thinking & thinking & thinking. that’s what they don’t realise, the mortals. when you live forever you think forever. you see forever. his mind is more inescapable than his chains.

vii. atlas savours the taste of the war he fought, the one where he stood with the other titans. the one where he stood against his own brother. he thinks about how they’re both lashed down now, and he laughs bitterly. when he starts asking himself whether he should have fought with the gods instead, he remembers where prometheus is and laughs harder.

viii. they both did what they thought was right, & now their screams resound & bounce off each other’s. together.