delphi ~ where godhood and mortality meet

the heliades
our brother grew up
with so much hate in his fragile body,
held in by delicate bronze skin.
he let barbed words tear through it
just as easily as stone and sand did
when he was just learning to race.

our mother was never harried.
she had melted away that part of her
long ago.
all she loved
was the brother we protected and served
and the father we never really knew.
she taught us by doing nothing.
she taught us by omission.
we learned how to feed the family
along with
going to market,
keeping house,
and everything else
by ourselves.
our mother never spoke to us
unless it was to speak about our brother.
there was no pride for us in her heart,
and it was obvious through her eyes, her voice, and her hands.
when we first bled, she was absent.
the moment phaethon got his first cut, she was there.
(we were only absent
because we were making his lunch
and fixing his toys.)
when we curled up in agony and first felt
the pain of being a woman,
the only people we could rely on
were our fellow sisters.
if phaethon was ever feeling slightly ill,
we were there to nurse him back to health
and insist he stay inside
(mother was too busy
making dreamy faces
at the noontime sky).

our father never paid us any attention.
he never thanked us for keeping our brother alive.
the very day our brother went to him,
he lost both his pride and his life.
no one
was ever as good
at keeping our brother alive
as we were.

all we were ever taught to be
were our mother's stand-ins,
our father's ghosts,
and our brother's keepers.
the only role we enjoyed
was being our brother's keeper.
the only family we loved
was our brother.

we stay by his side
even in the
immortalized death
we've been given.
we linger around him as we always have.
it matters not whether we live or die,
whether we age or stay young.
this much will stay the same.
we are a ring of poplars
around his acidic spring,
forever crying
tears of amber
to fossilize our love.

phaethon is our only faith
and our only love.

~

our reason to live was our brother.
wherever he goes, we go.
if he burns, we burn.
if he fails, we fail.
if he dies a not-death,
we will do the same.

from the moment
we first saw
his ichor-colored eyes
and felt his soft bronze skin,
we knew it was our duty to stand by him
and ensure nothing happened
to turn his eyes milky
or make his skin rough.

brother, we've failed you.
brother, we love you.

orpheus on his life before it was poisoned by death

i. warrior
i was very young when i first learned that
my father wanted me to be a warrior.
terrorizing distant lands with battle cries and swords
was, after all, what he thought brought
my mother to him.
she confides to me
that it was none of these things.
of everything about him
that could have drawn her in,
she fell in love with his voice.

ii. transition
i was my father's disappointment.
since everyone knew it,
his title of king and warbringer
did nothing to protect me
from bullies and big-mouthed boys.
but my voice did.

iii. apprentice
every note i sang held not only power,
but pleasure,
and once i started singing,
nobody wanted to bully me.
why would they want to destroy something so beautiful?
nobody could ignore my natural aptitude,
even from the spires of olympus.
my mother, eldest of the muses,
beamed with pride
as she and her sisters
taught me all they knew
and i outshone them all.
then, the golden god came.
the god of medicine, the sun,
and all of the arts that my mother and aunts
have godly sanctum over.
what i am about to share is a secret
buried so far deep in my heart
to never be let out
due to the treachery
i fear it is.
i share this secret here
because it matters not to me now.
the golden god brought something;
an instrument just as golden as he.
he set it down to talk with my mother,
and my feet moved of their own accord.
the string of fate that tied me to the instrument
was glowing and twisted and golden.
i like to say i followed that string.
but what i really followed
was my secret dislike for this pompous god
who thought it natural and right
to walk into the sanctum of my mother and aunts
and declare himself the lord
of everything they'd worked so hard to
be recognized and appreciated for.
i followed both my spite
and the tug of fate
to the gorgeous instrument.
i picked it up
and plucked the string.
the god with molten metal for eyes tensed and turned,
fury alining every rigid muscle and tendon.
his rage was hazy to me,
lost to the background
as i continued to pluck the strings.
the product went from noise to music,
music to audified emotion,
audified emotion to everything mortal put to the strings of this instrument.
even as i played, i cried inaudibly,
singing words my brain did not process.
this music captured every
sorrowful and sweet moment
of mortality,
and turned it into something worth listening to.
i ended the ballad,
and looked up to see
the golden god with a hand upon his heart
and tears of appreciation and emotion
trailing down the faces of every deity in the room.
i set down the instrument and
met the gaze of the golden god.
"i apologize, my lord.
i... i had to." i said,
my voice infused
with the melody of
the piece i'd just played.
"do not apologize
for the beauty you've gifted our world."
the golden god said
in a voice raw with emotion.
he picked up the instrument
and molded my fingers around it.
"here, take it. take my lyre.
please continue to play.
please continue
to spread your gorgeous music."
suffice it to say,
i did not hate him
as much
after that.

iv. musician
i practiced until my music made
demons dance,
rivers cry,
and flowers bloom.
the people who once told me i would amount to nothing
now worshipped me,
and they were not the only ones.
and then,
i fell in love.

v. lover
she was sunshine
poured into a human soul
and it showed
though her laughter and smiles.
her voice was honeyed
and when we sang together,
i felt happiness so deeply
that it made my heart ache.
her name
was eurydice.
she loved me not for my fame or my music,
but for everything that lay beneath it.
her father was the golden god
who'd served me my fame on an equally golden platter,
and he blessed our marriage with a smile on his face
and excitement in his heart.
we were all excited.
the world was invested.
i could barely believe i would be happy.

eurydice: lover turned to poetry
skin the color of walnuts,
hair the color of coals.
my lover waxed poetry into
every word and oath.
whenever he spoke or sang of me,
he made me seem beautiful.
when i was with him,
i felt like it could be true.
he said i was both an inferno
and a riptide
and a playful breeze.
he said he wouldn't trade me for the world.
i never thought he'd be willing
to trade the world for me.

(entry for April 16th)
honeymoon
the musician and his muse
meander hand-in-hand
through garden paths lined with azaleas.
their feet soon tread
paths not yet traveled by man,
and they'll soon wish they didn't travel so far.
her laughter rings out,
dancing across the brilliant,
sunlit dome of clouds and sky,
his melodic, affectionate teasing
a steady undercurrent
that stokes the ire
of the muse's admirer.
~
it's funny that they call it a
"honey" moon.
~
she sees a cluster
of hyacinthus.
he spots a sprinkling
of honeysuckle.
they laugh, share a kiss,
and their paths diverge
with plans to rendez vous
at the nearby pond
for a midday meal.
~
love is in the air,
but something creeps
underneath it.
~
the musician is gone.
the muse is alone.
the admirer thinks that
now is his only chance
to beseech a happily married woman
with the same godly father as him
to love him in eros
instead of philea.
when he shouts and she sees him,
the muse does the only sensible thing.
she runs.
~
aristaeus was a godling
borne of two powerful entities.
with power came talent,
with talent came curses and blessings,
and aristaeus was blessed
with immortality and godhood.
upon the honeymoon of eurydice and orpheus,
eurydice encountered
her half brother and admirer
aristaeus,
god of beekeeping.
~
he milked honey from bees
with curiosity and steady fingers.
he thought he could milk love from a woman
with lust and sudden force.
everyone knows
you do not make any
sudden movements
around a lone bee.
there is no doubt
that you will get stung.
~
a scream pierces through the skies,
eerily similar to the laughter
that shot from the lungs of
a brilliantly alive woman
only minutes earlier.
~
the difference between orpheus and aristaeus
is that when eurydice screamed,
her lover ran towards her
while her admirer ran away.
her lover feared for her,
her admirer feared for himself.
there is a difference
between love and fascination,
and aristaeus never knew
which was which.

(entry for April 17th)
aristaeus
how does someone go
from a boy with
gentle fingers and
wide, curious eyes
to a man with
greedy hands and
eyes that
gobble up everything they see?

it begins with the fading of a love.
a father starts to become absent,
no longer proud of the honey
his son brings home from the bees.
a mother starts to become distant,
eyes drawn north
to rivers and boars and trees.
everyone starts to disconnect
and all that's left
is a boy with tawny skin
and eyes like honey
who only wanted to be loved.

but lust is not love,
and fascination can only take you
so far.

(entry for April 18th)
between life and death (dying)
i. scream
it shatters
across the cosmos.
fear halts every movement
and i freeze.
no.
no, no, no, no no, no, NO-

my feet fly.

i don't remember
ever feeling so scared.

she always brought out
the parts of me
i never knew existed.

i never thought fear
would be one of them.

ii. fade
her body is
twisted as she
pants, eyes trained on the sky,
pain turning them
faraway
already.
i grip her hand
(stay with me, stay with me)
but she fades
and she fades
and she
fades.

iii. waiting
any chance i had at happiness or goodness
was drained with every bit of life that left her.

but i wait.
surely this cannot be the end.

iv. realization
no one is coming
to save her (to save us).
there are no gods with twisted bargains,
no sympathetic satyrs or nymphs,
no demons parading about to take her soul.

thanatos already slipped her soul from her body
and he did so quietly.
zephyrus whispers an apology,
barely there, then gone.
the moment she screamed, she sealed her fate.

i hold her even when her body turns cold,
and the vipers that sank their fangs to find her veins
have slithered out to stare at me.

"take me," i beg them
"take me like you took her."

they look at me sadly
and return to their den.

(entry for April 19th)
orpheus's lament
any chance at my happiness fades.
my darling.
my eurydice.

my voice and my music has always been adored,
whether it be though song, poetry, or instruments.
even the gods admit my voice is pretty.

i never thought
my screams
would be pretty, too.

(entry for April 20th)
chance: orpheus before the underworld
i have drifted with feet of lead
across this earth for far too long.
a cyclops tugs gently but pleadingly at my sleeve,
face by my feet from his hidden lair in the ground.
tears trail swiftly from his single eye
and snot runs from his hooked nose.

"we feel your pain, gifted one,"
he says.
"but please let us feel it no more."

this is one of the only times i feel the urge to kill.
my father would be proud of me for once.
"i do not feel pain, dastardly one," i snarl.
"i am pain."
my words are both a warning and a threat.

the cyclops does not heed it, does not shrink.
"even demons feel, gifted one." somehow, this sounds like advice.
he goes on.
"there have been
whisperings of late.
tears clog their eyes and latch onto their throats from the inside,
so heartily and so much so that they
cannot do the workings of their masters and mistresses.
they say that even the king and queen of the dead
would be willing to grant you solace
and return to you what you've lost."

the world tilts
and something sparks back to life in me.

(entry for April 21st)
between life and death: orpheus to, in and out of the underworld
i. journey.
boulders cleave themselves in two
in order to let me pass.
mountains tremble and very soon crumble
to nothing but soil and grass.
i ease through what is left of the world,
searching for a hell that is burning.
the spark of hope that used to flicker inside me
has turned into a wildfire, a raging inferno.
i feel my eurydice there.

"you are unwelcome here, mortal,"
charon addresses me with
a frostiness that chills me to the bone.
i raise a brow defiantly and my fingers
fly across the strings of my lyre,
playing an original elegy.
weeping, the ferryman grants me free passage
across the river styx.

souls from the river of burning
creep to the surface,
feeling something
for the first time in millenium.

i am met with the dog
guarding the gates of the dread royals' palace.
it snarls with all three muzzles.
i pluck a chord and its malice vanishes.

the erinyes shriek
and dive at me with spears and rusted claws.
i hum a short, powerful ballad of war,
and they halt.

"grant me an audience with your dread king and queen,"
i command in a voice of liquid silver,
"for they have taken something dear to me
and word has it, they wish to bargain."

ii. audience.

i have been granted audience.
the full weight of their heavy stares
is nothing compared to the burden of my love's death.

"you've come for your wife. haven't you, gifted one?"
asks the goddess with cold eyes the color of pomegranates.

somehow when she says it,
it does not sound like a question.

i answer anyway.
"i have, goddess."

the lord of the dead himself raises a brow from beside her.
"then you will have her.
the gods know not to
stand in the way of love,
as she'd have our heads for it."
he waves a hand,
and power pulses, filling the room.

the goddess's cold, thin hand slices through the air,
and the magic is dimmed.
"there are, of course, conditions."
she says smoothly.

her husband cuts a glance her way,
like the portrait she's painting
was not planned.

she continues without a care.
"you will make no music, no noise
on your way out,
and you mustn't turn to look for her.
you must have faith
in our power and the bargain we've gifted you."
her eyes gleam lightlessly.

despite my screaming senses, i nod.
for eurydice, i will truly face hell.
for eurydice, i will blindly trust the gods.

iii. return.
the way back is filled with screams.
the underworld had fallen silent at my music,
and i'd put to rest the demons--
for a short while, at least.

charon gives me a nasty, knowing smile,
and we move across the river styx.

everything is slower
and more tortuous
than before.

iv. loss
demons snicker, eyes glinting
wickedly as i pass.

i have heard nothing behind me,
nothing to suggest i am not being
double-crossed.

but i believe, for what else can i do?

i see light that is not from hellfire,
familiar foliage and boulders--
hope swells in my heart,
maybe we can make it out after all.

a gasp rings out from behind me,
a noise of pain and a thump
as a body falls to the ground.

i turn only on instinct.
i know every facet of my eurydice's voice.
she is behind me.
she is in pain.
i must help-

her eyes meet mine in horror
as she reaches out for me
and slowly fades away.

(entry for April 22nd)
orpheus after
i have failed to live.
i have failed you.
you were always
so alive.
and i know i drift across this void
and disappoint you.
i can't bring myself
to smile falsely
or laugh hollow laughs.
i can't say things i don't mean,
nor can i sing songs i don't feel.
you always made me feel
like i was more than a musician,
more than my music.
without you,
i do not feel that way
anymore.

(entry for April 23rd)
cyrene
i killed a lion in my youth.
alone, unarmed,
i took my strength and
funneled it to my fists and
made them into weapons.
to protect, i would do it
a thousand times more.

i was a shepherd in my youth.
skin bronzed by the sun that loved me so.
the moon sought to collect me;
i'd make a great hunter, she'd say.
i told her i stayed with my sheep.

the sun came to collect me.
he spoke so prettily that i didn't resist.
i was blinded by potential;
i couldn't see the evidence history provided.
i abandoned my sheep
and began a new life
on a new continent.

i became a woman,
i became a lover,
i became a mother,
i became a queen.
life was peaceful.
life was fine.
until my children grew up,
the sun grew tired of me,
and life became dull instead of peaceful.
i was too comfortable.

i returned to my childhood home,
to the hill upon which
i slayed the lion that gave me my name.
the war God met me there, a grin curling his lips.
i'd make a great warrior, he'd say.
he fought me, offered me the challenge i craved.
but he, too, grew tired of me.
once he did, i returned to my city;
the city that held my crown,
the city of which, i am queen.

the sun understood.
it was the thrill of challenge that sustained me.
nymph and titan ichor run through my veins.
i am cyrene lionkiller,
and i will not be tamed.
that's the problem with gods.
they want to sort us mortals
into boxes that don't totally define us.

the sun asked me what i wanted and listened.
he took my ichor and bound me to the land, the waters, the skies.
he immortalized not just my name, but my body and blood, too.

i am cyrene lionkiller,
and i am lucky to have a legacy.

(entry for April 24th)
the curse of calypso
poor calypso.
pinned on an island
like your father
pinned under the sky.
punished for doing something
everyone else in the mythos
refused and feared to do
(choosing a father over freedom).
trapped in a paradise with a hidden curse.
your lovers will always leave you
and you will never stop falling in love.

(entry for April 25th)
a love letter to nymphs
you were made
on nature's whim,
the snarling of bears and the howling of wolves
echoing in your heart even as
you calmly tend to streams,
walk through groves,
and bless flowers of both deadliness and beauty.
you were not made to tend to the gods
or inflate the egos of deities and mortals alike.
you are a force of nature
and they cannot condemn you.

(entry for April 26th)
daphne
run, run, run
with the word "no" on your tongue.
run, run, run
your feet beat the ground like drums.
run, run, run
can you believe the gods do this for fun?
you cannot win
even though they have sinned,
so gaea whispers to you,
"run, run, run."

(entry for April 27th, written April 27th in notebook)
broken pride: hera to hephaestus
you emerged from my womb broken.
and i raged at the injustice of it.
your imperfection reflected poorly on me;
i could not nurture you,
could not face the humiliation
of being the woman you'd call "mother".
so i threw you out and wept, embarrassed.
now, you've returned,
chin held high
with an easy smile,
and i see both the nurture from the mortals and naiads
and my nature in you.
i am ashamed.
i lost every gentle part of me,
reduced myself to the poisoned ichor of the gods
that shows so purely in my husband;
the venom oozing from my tongue i always tried to ignore.
but now i cry tears of acid
when i think of the monster i've become
in the face of his entitlement, arrogance, and cruelty.
zeus lashes out with his lightning.
in my anger, i cry
and while i scream, the sky rains acid.
my gentle boy, i do not deserve you.
you, with your wide open heart
fitting as the husband of the goddess of love.
you, with those glowing ember eyes
twin to those of your half brother ares
but with more kindness and warmth
than he was raised to know.
you, with your scarred skin and coarse hair
and the harsh, hewn features
i tend to pass down to all my children.
you share my thirst for vengeance,
even when you had me trapped atop my throne,
there was pride for you under my hysteria.
even now when i hide it,
i am proud of you.
i do not deserve you,
but i am glad you are my son.