Halcyon

medusa

They tell my story as if I were born fanged,
as if the venom came before the blood.
But once, I too had a mother’s lap,
sisters who plaited my hair
before it learned to hiss.

I was beautiful once,
not the kind that begged to be adored,
but the type that breathed peacefully,
the kind that wanted to serve.
The temple was my sanctuary,
and I kept it like a heartbeat,
faithful, still, and sacred.

Until he came,
the king of tides,
full of salt and hunger,
turning worship into war.
I said no,
but in his world,
no is only a sound.
His hands made ruins of my reverence.

I ran to her
my protector, my guardian,
my family of marble and wisdom.
But she looked at me with the same eyes
She uses on mortals
cold, bright, and distant.
And instead of holding me,
she marked me.

Said I had tainted her temple.
Said I must carry the weight of what was done to me
as if it were what I had done for him.

That was the first betrayal
not his touch, ruin, or sin,
but her silence.

She took my hair first,
turned each strand into venom,
so no hand could ever touch me again.
Then my gaze
so no man could look at me without dying of it.

Some call it her blessing,
some call it her curse,
but between those two words,
and both of their wars,
I just lost who I was.

Tell me,
Was my devotion too loud,
or my silence too long?

Burning me does not equate to purification,
crowning my violation with serpents
is not the mercy you bestow.
Making me a monster is not the balance.

He took my flesh,
but you broke my faith.
What are you now,
if not the mirror of his cruelty?
At least he took my body
but you, dear me, took everything else.

Your wisdom is far from justice;
all I saw was pride wearing armor.
I asked for peace, not power
in the end, I had neither.

If wisdom cannot err,
then how did you mistake
his sin for mine?
My beauty was an offering;
you turned it into a curse,
a warning to other women,
as if survival were shame.

I was not born from venom.
It was distilled from my tears.

But that is not even the saddest part.
I will forever be remembered
as the crazy, snake-haired demon
who wrecked havoc on the world
until I was slain, yet again,
by another hero
claiming it was peace.
With irony at its peak,
you wear my head
to guard your glory
but don't glory my truth.

Tell me, why was
the shape of my punishment
called justice,
and taught to poets
to sing of it?