Venus, you whisper in my ear
and I sit up awake
with banshee screams weaving themselves back into my throat,
screams of No-No-No,
screams of Screw-the-gods
and Let-me-be’s,
screams of Please-let-me-stay
until I see it’s only you.
You try to calm me down
as dawn filters in our open window
but my mortal heart thuds and thuds and thuds
a cacophony of
lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub,
and I stare into your face wondering
how you throw around the cursed names
of these gods with so much ease.
Call me not Venus, nor Aphrodite,
I am not Minerva or Persephone,
neither am I Juno,
I am human, I am mortal so let me be,
let me keep my anonymity
away from the gods and their games,
they will only try to make heroes and legends out of me
and demand sacrifices out of what I don’t want to give,
they will only make chess pieces of my heart and mind-
of my loyalty and love.
Please,
let me stay here
with my arms around your neck in my faceless oblivion
because these gods live a lonesome life
with only frail humans for playtoys
and they take their pleasure in ripping us apart to put us together,
only to rip us apart again,
if only for the sake of having something to do.
Let me stay whole,
let me be mortal here
hidden in a cocooned world that
they do not know of,
because I have known no poison sweeter than my mortality,
and no truth has given me more joy
than this
that my tired heart might one day
give up on me.
Let me live to die
without tasting the immortals’ cursed ambrosia
again,
let me bleed red hot blood instead of freezing gold ichor;
I paid a small price for my anonymous mortality,
and I fear someday
the buyer will come knocking at my door
for a return,
before Thanatos does.
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