He wanted her, 

so he took her. 

With violence and thrashing and might. 

He left her on shore with nothing 

but the foam lapping at her limp feet 

and the rising sun reflecting off of her hair

and onto the stone pillars. 

She,

who was supposed to be her sister,

wanted her legacy to be broken 

like her dignity 

and threw her away to be the monster

with hundreds of scaley heads and ruined with eyes that pierced souls. 

Little did Athena know, 

despite her hubristic knowledge 

and her skin deep wisdom, 

that her "monster's" cries would be carried off with the hot breath of the wind 

and seep into lives much more than she could ever hope for. 

Her "monster" slithered her way into humanity, 

with an open heart and sunglasses,

wrapping herself around the bodies hunched over, 

throats scratched and whimpering for help in times of pain. 

She mended broken women, 

empty, 

abused.

She is the patron saint of those whos lives 

and childhoods, 

and children, 

and lovers,

were stolen,

raped, 

torn to bits,

died,

under the hand of her fellow man.

Her fellow sisters. 

Medusa, Goddess of Women, 

helped those while the royalty upstairs 

were consumed by jealousy, flouncing around in their castles of gold, 

by reviving the empty souls of the world, 

who wandered up until then for Hades' embrace.

Then they slaughtered her.

Another one who saw only her body

and only her body then was worth something to them. 

They slaughtered her, 

in her own home, 

and took her brain and used it as currency, 

not thinking for once that her reflection would remain. 

It remained behind those who 

crept down dark alleyways with their keys wedged between their knuckles, 

in the dirty mirror of those looking for some stability after one too many shots, 

the friendly knock on the door and outreached handshake,

shielding those like thick blankets who fell asleep on alien couches, 

shadowed in the unfamiliar street's flashing lights, 

found as an old woman's smile on the crowded red line, 

the camera policing men in blue,

the kindness of a stranger with no deviant intention or touch. 

Medusa's reflection outlasts that of her abusers  

because her strength outweighs their weakness

and is imprinted in her muses of womanhood.