Cassandra
(Cassandra; Princess of ill-fated Troy. She was loved by Apollo who gave her many gifts including prophecies but when she rejected him he turned this gift into a curse. She would be able to see the future but no one would believe a word she said. Thus she foresaw the Trojan war, at the end of which she was taken as a slave by Agamemnon and killed along with him by his wife, Clytemnestra)
I was beautiful
And, Gods, how I hated it.
My flawless skin opened the door
To old men with their leering looks
My dark tresses bought up
Every possible trading root
Trapping me in the curse of royal blood
But He, He was different
I could have been peasant or princess
He didn't mind
So long as I was his
Golden boy
He was young, could play, could sing
An expert shot, his aim?
My heart.
He wooed me with
Silks, diamonds, prophecies.
What more could a girl want?
Of course I was flattered
By the look of lust in his blue green eyes
But, girls, I was young, I was foolish
I thought I could do better
It's a shame really
He could have loved me.
I tried to let him down gently
Get it over and done with
And send him on his way
I should have known better
He blew his top
Every gift a flop
And in a rage
He cursed me
Condemned me
Damned me
To a life living in the future
To see the blue Aegean turn red.
Oh bugger.
I would hear them in the streets
No longer a marvel but a laughing stock
(That Cassandra- a regular crunchy nut)
When I wailed, when I raved
And begged them to listen
I was ignored
Waved on
The fools.
Along came Helen,
The face that launched a thousand ships
Straight at my city.
The useless twit.
Little did she know
That I had had an advanced screening
Before the idea had popped
Into her pea sized brain
Of her falling in 'love' with
My pillock of a brother
Paris, pride of Priam
The prat.
The moment she entered these walls of stone
I knew the field before me
Would be churned with the feet of fighters
Mud and blood would flow together
And stain the hands of thousand
Their faces lit by the flames of the funeral fires
The ferryman would grow rich from this war.
The hooves beat inside my head…
I used every trick in the book
To get them to listen
To make them sit up and listen
To beware Greeks bearing gifts
But though every word I uttered
Was proven correct
They scoffed at my tears and
Ridiculed my desperate pleas.
And yet I still tried
Until he died.
He was kind to me,
Tried to comfort my cries
With words of hope
In the safety of his strong arms
That did murder everyday
And yet I did love him more than any other.
Honourable, handsome, heir
Hero, horse tamer, hope…
Hector…
Brother.
My heart was ice as his fire burnt out
The smoulder of my eyes dimmed
I grew silent.
Not a tear was shed
As I watched death work
Cold as the stone of Troy
That trapped me.
I hated them, with their false hope,
Every single one
With more heat than a thousand suns
Every man on the field at my feet
Deserved the freezing fingers of death
About their feeble throats
The fate I knew was theirs…
And mine.
The hoof beats closed in.
That damned horse was dragged through the streets.
I did not stop them.
They danced and feasted about it.
I did not speak out.
And when they fell into a drunken sleep
I did not wake them
But let them slumber on in the innocence denied me.
I watch the city burn
Again and again
Feeling the heat of that huge pyre.
I could not resist
When I saw the faces of
My laughing father, my mocking mother
As their jewel turned to ash before them.
With a self-satisfied smirk
And a glint of glee in my all seeing eyes
I turned and spoke
three
little
words
Told you so.
