Authors note:
I tried to make Persephone in this poem seem confused and uncaring. Although a goddess of spring, she never experiences true joy- from her mother nor her husband Hades. She sees hersel as a victim in this and never truly tries to connect with him. Ssimilarily, she feels not for her children. It was harder for me to write this because I- like most people- see the goddess of spring as a happy go lucky sort of person, with joy everywhere. It was diffucult to articulate this kind of vast opposite of a person.
Persephone
The flowers have always been complacent.
I suppose they are the only things I can truly trust.
My name was Kore
It means maiden.
I am the farthest thing from one.
I think my mother -
Nevermind.
I-
Nevermind.
I frolick in the fields.
That's all I do.
All I
Can do.
He saw me.
That vile, treacherous man.
He was the one mother told me about.
I don't know what he saw in me
Perhaps the
Ebony
Of my skin
In
The sunlight.
I wonder-
Nevermind.
A wife's job is to
Please.
I never wanted to be a wife-
HIS wife-
I never wanted to be a lot of things.
I am springtime.
Innocence.
I hate
Being innocent.
My husband wants children
I want to see my flowers.
So when
My father
Came to me
Looking like
My husband,
I did not stop him.,,,
My mistake.
I gave life to a child that grew in my stomach.
Three of them actually.
I hate them too.
For half the year I go back to see my mother.
I don't want to see her.
But anything to get away from the stench of death.
I-
Nevermind.
My life will always be
So unchanging.
But when I
Cut myself.
Gold ichor falls out.
Not the red blood of mortals.
Like always.
So unchanging.
Nothing will ever be different.