Dear Alcestis,
You are
an ancient feminist
an empowered woman trapped in a world of patriarchy.

From the beginning you were dismissed, resigned to be chattel.
You were ordered, pushed, directed by the males around you to latch on.
Ensnare him in a your feminine web.
You're not strong enough alone.
You're just a woman.
Why should you-
Stop.

You find it all in Him:
Shock, love, strength
you are finally balanced, equal.
You are happy.
But Fate holds a bed of snakes for the forgetful and He is stolen from you.
Apollo cannot help you now, and you see only one option.

Once again a primal privilege arises,
But you must win, you must succeed.
You sneak away, so desperate to see the world, be the change, be the solution for once, you sacrifice yourself-
Hades.
You are floating, falling, frightened-
Stop.

All you know is-
Someone carrying you away, rushing-
Stop.
You are handed back to Him- you are limp,
helpless.
You are more than that.
**** Hercules.

You are the distressed princess, the fair maiden, and still the hero of your own story.

You ask what I'm thinking, and I give you
Some line I wrote in freshman English.
Then you sit there telling me I'm so insightful,
But, God!—I've got you fooled.
I am not special or interesting or
Different;
I am a girl who reads poems
(Far too much Bukowski) and
Lets the flicker of the TV lull her to sleep.
Night after night it's some new hero telling a girl with big eyes he loves her,
And then they're living 'happily ever after'
Like it's some place you can drop by for a postcard and a bite to eat.
It's *******.
Still, look at me—I eat it up,
Let it sink so deep that it digs through my bones
Until I'm practically made of the stuff.
And the worst part is, I'm running around spouting all this fairy-tale garbage,
Like maybe if I say it often enough, it'll come true.
But, of course, it never does.
You never burst through the right door, and I never cry into the crook of your neck.
I don't love you, and you only think you love me:
The ***** who reads Bukowski.

She comes from routine
monotony, with just a hint of spontaneity.
She comes from laughter,
the good kind,
with wrinkled noses, cramped bellies and hiccupsbetweenwords.
She comes from knowledge
from sitting,
swiveling,
stretching,
sleeping,
AND an empty mind.
She comes from dark rooms
in quiet houses
filled to the brim
with white noise.
She comes from nowhere of importance
because
where she is going is all that matters.

Pretend you are a book,
Being opened from time to time;
Your pages being flipped,
They tell a comic, story, or rhyme.
Satisfy your readers, and always get them hooked
You can be anything, and today you are a book.

What's wrong with you, with us,
what's happening to us?
Ah our love is a harsh cord
that binds us wounding us
and if we want
to leave our wound,
to separate,
it makes a new knot for us and condemns us
to drain our blood and burn together.

What's wrong with you? I look at you
and I find nothing in you but two eyes
like all eyes, a mouth
lost among a thousand mouths that I have kissed, more beautiful,
a body just like those that have slipped
beneath my body without leaving any memory.

And how empty you went through the world
like a wheat-colored jar
without air, without sound, without substance!
I vainly sought in you
depth for my arms
that dig, without cease, beneath the earth:
beneath your skin, beneath your eyes,
nothing,
beneath your double breast scarcely
raised
a current of crystalline order
that does not know why it flows singing.
Why, why, why,
my love, why?

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

the house next door makes me
sad.
both man and wife rise early and
go to work.
they arrive home in early evening.
they have a young boy and a girl.
by 9 p.m. all the lights in the house
are out.
the next morning both man and
wife rise early again and go to
work.
they return in early evening.
By 9 p.m. all the lights are
out.

the house next door makes me
sad.
the people are nice people, I
like them.

but I feel them drowning.
and I can't save them.

they are surviving.
they are not
homeless.

but the price is
terrible.

sometimes during the day
I will look at the house
and the house will look at
me
and the house will
weep, yes, it does, I
feel it.