Αυτή η δεμι-θεά είναι η ουσία της ποίησης

 

The eye of the universe

bats its lashes at a

a single sliver of splintered light

blinking boastfully in the opaqueness–

a crescent m☽☽n is birthed,

carved by the Huntswoman’s

  ➳silver tipped arrows➳

on the night I–

a demi-goddess-

am born.

 

And this Hunstwomen,

my heavenly mother,

my celestial nurturer,

Artemis

plants antlers atop my

hairless skull in the hopes that I,

her daughter,

will grow wild

as the deer Her Greatness

has vowed to protect;

as the cypress whose limbs

swell with greenery;

as the moon who must wax

as surely as it must wane;

as Artemis herself,

whom they call

“Lady of Wild Things.”

 

And I too

am a Wild Thing,

for I am a women

of extremity.

 

How can I not be,

when I come from a long line

of deities,

whose veins palpitate

with the very atoms of chaos?

 

How else am to explain the fire

the seethes inside of my soul?

A fire kindled by Zeus,

the Lord of the Sky,

the God of all Gods.

Lightning bolts play hopscotch

across my collarbone,

crack against my ribcage

like Poprocks crack against tongue.

 

Some days,

these flames enable

the crusade of my passions,

accelerating me onwards,

like the wheels of

pegasus drawn chariot.

But there is such as thing

as being too passionate,

for with great passion comes

great emotion,

and with great emotion comes

the capacity for great heartbreak.

 

I love with the catastrophic magnitude

of a category five hurricane;

it’s no wonder no mortal man

is capable of reciprocating my musings,

for there is no emulating this storm,

there is no matching the desires

of Aphrodite’s offspring.

And you should see my heart

when it’s broken–

the way it snaps so eloquently

like the neck of a swan,

how it metamorphosizes,

scorching itself

to a point of  αγνώριστος 

(unrecognizable)

blackness.

In the pit of my

cracked palms,

I hold the charred

f

r

a

g

m

e

n

t

s

of my heart–

kaleidoscopic shards

jagged enough to draw blood.

 

When the palpitating ache

in my chest proves to be unbearable,

I sprint to the riverside,

well aware that it is the closest

I will be able to get to the ocean

on such short notice.

I take off my socks and

my worn down Doc Martens

and wade into the water.

 

Entranced by its

refreshingly cruel coldness,

I baptize myself in its

precarious currents and beg

Poisedon to extinguish the fire in me.

He douses me in his spirit

in an attempt to console the embers

that lick at my heels.

 

But this attempt proves

to be unsuccessful;

for there is no way of curing

the daughter of Olympus.

Fire and water merge,

imposing on to my being

a molten existence.

I    l~i~q~u~e~f~y.

Tendrils of lava crawl

up my oesophagus,

sear the impression

of a laurel atop my head,

burn so violently,

they turn purple.

 

“Dear Gods,”

I plead

“Take away this body,

this mind,

this soul–”

 

“Child,”

a lyrical voice

echoes back to me.

“You must not forsake yourself

like this, ”

she declares.

 

“The mark of the Parthenon,

of I,

your third mother,

Athena

dwells among your fingertips–

There is

p

o

e

t

r

y

in your bones,

an emblem of my wisdom,

of Apollo’s bestowal of enlightenment.

And so you,

my demi-goddess,

must carry on the legacy

of your ancestors through

your wildness

your extremity

your chaos–

 

your poetry.

For you were made

in the image of the Gods.”