body work

xii: persephone wishes she was the flower she plucked

**tw's: starvation, throwing up, abduction, death**

it is in the belly of spring that the rain pours down.
the styx, she drinks
greedily & overflows onto the ground.
hades, he watches with pomegranate dripping from his mouth—

he swallows it whole, save for some seeds for the one he loves. with
the red of it coating his tongue,
he patiently waits for what is to come—

oh, indeed watch the
river become serpentine, how
she spits & it blooms into
the narcissus that persephone
is fated to pick one day—despite
knowing that it will surely decay.
even now, she blames herself
for being stolen away. not knowing that
her father had sealed her fate.

the ground opens up, &
persephone goes down. forced by
hades, she drinks the juice
from his mouth. it is sweet,
like she once was.

& demeter who laments
the loss of her daughter,
rages at helios for
trying to comfort her—how dare he tell her that this was alright?
for when winter comes, he is the first to die!

in her anguish, she
walks the whole earth—
to find her daughter.
rages the whole time & lets
the world double over
in its wilting & worrying.
only a mother's love could

starve all of humanity. &
when she is found,
she chastises her girl for the
pomegranate seeds lacing
her teeth. persephone
is home, if only to
create the spring—

the vegetation comes to life, sprung
forth from her dainty hand.
demeter then feeds & feeds
& feeds her from
that same rich land.

when the larkspurs are gone
& the earth is all rotten & cold, persephone—now plump around the ankles—kisses her mother
on the cheek & readies herself.
in return, demeter begs her to no longer eat from the leftovers of the dead.

persephone wonders how
a queen cannot eat
whilst ruling over her own land—
& hades reminds her of
what his father had done —
how cronus devoured his
children then disgorged
them one by one.

& year by year, persephone
comes & goes. called
the maiden of two homes,
she grows to love the cold &

marvels at her breath having
its own cloud—how she can wisp
out what never needs to be said.
she is loyal to the dead
& serves them well,
hades tells her she serves them well &

as spring comes this year,
the people anticipate the grain.
the sunlight, though weak, means
persephone will soon be out again.

but when the seasons turn around,
the land is scarce & cold. there
are rumours persephone stays with her
abductor & refuses to come home. truly,

persephone is amongst the living
but tethered to her mother's
bosom—demeter mourns
for the winters to come, still in her
grief not knowing that
she makes one.

downstairs, hades paces his realm,
wishing he too could leave
& persephone writhes in her
mother's arms, unable to breathe. it's

a thunderous july where
persephone rightly brings
up the grain, only for
demeter to simply weep it away.
helios dips in & out,
veiling himself in shame.

persephone has never seen the
earth in so much pain
& this scares her.
where is the blue comfort of the sky? where is the grass as green as her eyes? she tells demeter that if this is winter, then she is glad to be sent
away each year.

demeter loosens her hold &
the birds begin to sing. helios comes back to persephone dancing with the wind. spring, she is here, a little late, but formed. the people know it's a miracle she even came at all.

the harvest is bountiful, the people
are fed. soon comes the time
where she must return to the dead.

in desperation, demeter exclaims that one cannot be with darkness & stay in good health,
persephone tells her how hades carrying her away was a death in itself—
still, she is not one of them, but rather their queen—
demeter understands this and releases her grief. or tries to—

& come the winter, persephone
feasts solely on orpheus' song. & so, hades spares him, wanting his
queen to take what rightfully belongs

to her. the sound of the birdsong, so
gentle & calm, whilst
somewhere up there, a bird's nest is cut in half—
& only a mother's love would let a daughter starve—

just to glimpse her for a season.
just to see if she will stay away from the life that she grows—

hades had taken the child she once knew. magicked her into someone who cannot look at the flowers she grew, watch how

persephone flits desperately from
realm to realm,
from life to death—all of it & still,
she could lift a hand & give life to these souls as she does the grain.
but it's part of the virtue, to die & it
would not be the same—see,
there is a loneliness she feels. its
only soothed by calling the dead souls her friends & wishing
to be amongst them for real.

to grant her wish, for a few hours, she slips away to the upper realm,
to visit her mother with a gift of mint.
with cerberus at her heel—as if
to keep her worshippers at bay, the hell-hound showing she has no time for them today.

her mother's face is supposed to make her feel some way. when that does not happen, she pulls out a handful
of pomegranate seeds, drops them one by one & watches them as they fall to her feet. then leaves as quickly as she came. braces herself to go down again.

hades asks her where she has been.
mute, she spits out blood & he smiles with his teeth.