Aphrodite and Antigone

It falls under myth

because it’s the kind no one talks about.

Because Pygmalion grew into something larger than himself, the story touches of marble,

cold and taut, now trope-like and cheap.

Oceans can fit into the tiny cracks within the stone of all the words written, spoken, acted out, and mused on, of how the whole world stopped when Midas touched Damodice.

No, this isn’t a myth about men and their weak knees and their weak wills wailing, willing their women awake.

Olympus isn’t merciful, and they don’t speak Latin up there, so Aphrodite can’t answer all of her prayers.

Sophocles’ moral: how unwise it is to never admit fault,

but you. Oh, but you,

you left your morals in Thebes.

And the hubris courses through your veins,

and the lust lies heavy on your eyelids,

and your lips, flesh… but marble at this moment.

cracked, licked.

Midas-Medusa.

Suddenly, all I see is grey.

and I hear you scream, a scream something between an orgasm and axe wound,

for me to move my fingers in sin-washing confirmation.

Sight sided into shades of that same grey.

taught, cold, trope-like, and cheap.

With now a swan in a Zeus story.

And somehow, stringing together a dandelion crown of soft, yellow padding

searching through books and knocking down tables

finding the right, pretty words will always be easier

than the cold, marble truth.

A young girl like me.

Her soft hands smooth with a layer of lotion applied in the locker room.

A smile and giggle like a small sparrow’s chirp.

We were girls, together, she and I, and her memory feels like eternal June.

And I hate her. And I wish I could scoop her up and swaddle her in springtime.

And I wish she would drop dead. And I will wish I died too when she does.

Oh, Heracles, save me!

Save me from sea foam, it expands in my lungs!

Save me from honeybees, they sting when they’re lusty!

Save me from Calypso, I don’t want to be loved!

Odysseus just wanted to see his wife once more,

and I just wanted to sleep.

Myths change in regions, in time. Myths, too, can be lies.

And I may have out-written Homer himself.

The buzz… of that fridge. the fridge in her cabin. filled with Diet Coke.

The tapping… of moths cracking their little bodies open against the porchlight.

The tightness… she and I felt. Because her grandmother could wake at any moment.

June is over now.

The cracks in my stone begin to show, with no Gods, Greek or Roman, coming to save me.

I was thirteen, she was older.

And I never told her how I cried that night.

And she told me how she thought my thighs looked sexy in her skirt.

And she wanted to pull me onto her lap and feel mine against hers.

Rumours spread like a cancer.

And in autumn, she told me I would never see her again.

I finally felt my chest loosen, if not a little.

I felt my fingers twitch.

I became a prophecy story, and everyone knew it but me.

A chorus of masked faces detailing tragedy, yet I am sitting alone in this amphitheatre.

no matter how hard I will it, Heracles and Aphrodite are still lost to time and to myth.

and no, it was not the first journey to Sappho’s isle; it was two girls. One barely fourteen, the other never taught not to squeeze her pets too hard.

And this, this is not a myth.

Sophocles' morals. Admit your fault. I should have lied to you all and said it was a boy.

So then I may have been turned into gold instead.