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Pyrrha Dec 2023
I am a woman– forced to say it like a curse
Because the moment we are discovered
Evil eyes of all sorts gaze upon us,
Questioning and curious.
        “Is her skin like porcelain?”
They refer to us as pithos, jars
Containers of the worst combinations
Of what Pandora released
Transporters of life and miasma
The toxic pollutant that comes
With giving and taking life.
        “Her virtue above all else– is she pure?”
We are *parthenos,
with our coveted virginity
But once we are women we are spoiled
Once a jar has been opened and shattered
It can never become pristine and new again
Only lay in wait to crumble and expire.
        “Her hair, is it soft like satin?”
They who clamber out from our wombs,
Refer to us as stains of shame and burden
They call us impure and unclean when we bleed
A pollutant when we birth new life
Yet they are praised when they forsake ours.
        “Do her eyes shine like gems?”
We are like treasure, like silk and gold
When we are not yet broken, we are something desired
They say we are like pearls and gems; silk and gold
But these comparisons are not compliments– they are currencies
The closest they can get to shelving us, marketed to be sold
        “Is she beautiful?”
Be lovely like Aphrodite with unparalleled beauty
Be chaste as Athena and Artemis, a monarch like Hestia and Hera
Be obedient or become like Pandora and bring us to ruin
We are told to be and not be pieces of so many others,
That we can’t remember how to simply be ourselves.
        “Become unbreakable.”

.
Part of a three part series.
Pyrrha Dec 2023
When I was given life
I was born into this world all alone
There was no mother or father to greet my arrival
There were no smiles or cheers of joy
No warm welcomes into life

From my first breath of life I learned
That in this world my beauty is my worth
If I am not desirable, I am nothing
I am beautiful because I must be.

Before there was me the world was glimmerless
It hadn’t yet learned to shine
I knew someone had to teach it
To cherish,  adore and desire
To caress, feel and yearn
To love the beauty in between the little things

I always chased that feeling to hold as my own
And everybody has chastised me
I’m the harlot of your stories–
But all I’ve ever been is a lover of love
And I chose love and love again,
But love never chooses me back.

I used to wage wars over my body
They bathed themselves in blood to win me
But no one ever asked “Aphrodite, what is it you want?”
Instead they gave me away,
Like I was theirs to give.

I know love is violent
Perhaps I made that way
Because doesn’t blood look so pretty
When it is spilled for passion?
After all it was my blood
That painted all the roses red.
Part of a three part series.
Pyrrha Dec 2023
Curiosity became synonymous with me,
I held a secret of the Gods in my mortal hands,
But I am only human, how could I resist?
Just a peek, a small quick glance–
An irreparable mistake.

I was given a box that weighed less than a feather,
Said to contain inconceivable things
From the hands of Olympians to me on my first day on earth
I knew no better than any other mortal woman–
But they say I should have been wiser.

I was made with curiosity in my nature,
And humanity forever scorned me for it.
I gave us terrible things, it's a truth,
One I can never change nor repent enough for–
But I gave us one gift we could not live without,
I gave us hope.

In every moment where the tables turn
Where the gods do not smile down upon us
But smite us with their might–
We still have hope.

You may blame me for many things,
But never forget I was forged by the gods
And it was they who placed that box
Into my eager hands.
Part of a three part poem.
Pyrrha Dec 2023
Love makes a home in your heart
Carves dens out of your
Flesh, blood and bones
Welding each vessel into itself.

It's a tapestry woven into the soul
Not a garment easily shed or replaced
No mere band-aid, but a sacred mark
Etched upon the very essence of your being.

Love becomes a parasite
And when its had its fill
Love begins trying to tear its way out
From muscle and marrow.

Though when those who mean well say “let it go, move on”
Something so intimately branded on your soul
Will never simply just release its grip
It’s like drowning on land– an invisible, silent killer.

As love finally loosens the hands around your throat
Those phantom fingers, slithering off your skin
Relief is never the feeling that follows
Love leaves lingering devastation in its wake.

Tearing out its roots from where it nestled in your core
Releasing its toxic venom into your bloodstream
A final wound to make your heart bleed and choke
On an internal murky bath of blood and tears.

The extraction leaves you feeling hollow
With love clawing out caverns deep within you
You are left with the remnants of a once cherished host,
And an emptiness that can never be filled.
Pyrrha Dec 2023
After Edgar Allen Poe’s “Bridal Ballad”

In a distant meadow lies my mind,
     To get there, I cannot tell you how;
Twists and turns make it hard to find
But if you're lucky and the path is kind,
     Perhaps it will open for now.

Fields of dandelions are where I hide;
     When spring blooms, come make a vow,
For on the wind our dandelion wishes ride–
Tell them only to the withered ones who died,
Be honest, the only rule you must abide
And only the weeds will know if you lied,
     Do you see it now?

It does not matter if you mean well,
     I sometimes make mistakes in who I allow,
Are you poison or passion? I cannot always tell,
So you may come to stay but do not dwell–
Don’t be the one to turn a paradise into hell,
(And of my secret garden do not tell,)
     If you do, I can see it now–

Wildfires— the flames I cannot tame,
     Confusion, pain and anger that furrows my brow;
Putting pesticides to primroses is such a shame,
My daffodils lament, they cry for who’s to blame,
     Oh, I see it now!
Does such sorrow, such grief have a name?
     You must see it now!

When you turn my meadow into a burial mound;
     Where seedlings will not sprout— they can't remember how,
You turn it into a place where no dream is found
Where no wishes or vows can be bound,
And where loves whispers dare not sound
     And I can't see it now.
Pyrrha Dec 2023
I walk through this world blindfolded,
echolocating my way with just your heartbeat.
Each pulse guiding me through blurry lines,
making the world around me pellucid.

And though your heartbeat fades so soft–
I follow the breadcrumbs you leave me,
reminiscing in the times it was deafening, now
ultrasound, hardly there at all,
perhaps only a dream.

I may be vampire–
But what I crave is something sweeter than blood.
Only you would do, my favorite chalice,
such a decadent delight, sweet honey on my tongue,
the taste of your love I used to drink till I was drunk–

Now my thirst consumes me, such hunger becomes me,
with no true beginning and no true end.
I glide across the starlight, seeking you out
with my echoes in the dark.

On gilded wings I soar to you,
no matter how your fickle feelings wane.
The sound of your heart is still brighter than any flame–
It illuminates my way, and like a moth I follow.

But all fires burn out in their due time I suppose,
no matter how eternal their light seems.
And when too close to the sun,
all vampires return to dust–
no matter how immortal their dreams.
Pyrrha Dec 2023
If loving you and losing you was in the strings of fate,
Then I don't care what the Moirai say.

As they spin
As they weave
As they cut–


The planets are aligned,
Somewhere in my mind.

Nonetheless they’ve severed our strings,
Such an awful thing to do–
For what is a poet with no muse?


I often wonder if they have fingers like nymphs–
Or talons like gorgons.

Do Clotho’s delicate, slender fingers glide
Over our sorrows, our joys–
Or do her talons send those shivers down our spines?


Just one moment longer I beg,
Like Orpheus got for Euridyce– I don’t ask for much.

Does Lachesis weep when she hears me,
Like Cassandra for Troy
Knowing all, changing none?


Neither deities nor titans, they answer no prayers,
No love breaks laws the universe has laid.

Though, does Atropos ever hesitate
To cut those strings
To sever ties and choose who dies?


Who is it who chooses for them I ponder,
If perhaps the fates themselves can’t escape their fates.
The couplets are meant to be italicized, the site refused to italicize properly so I just went with the tercets instead
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