Where have the Old Gods gone?

 

Athena walks around college campuses

Books in her bag

And a switchblade under her tongue

When students march in the streets

Picket signs in their fists

She matches young soldiers step for step

Is this not a battle?

Is she not the Goddess of war?

 

Medusa wears her hair down 

As she walks home with only 

The street lamps for company

She’s no longer afraid of men 

Who trespass onto sacred ground

When people whisper pity into each other’s ears

She can’t help but laugh and pat her serpentine locks 

This was never a curse

 

Hera’s footsteps echo perfection in the click

Of her six-inch heels on courtroom tiles

She decimates the opposition 

Her smile never flinches

She tries not to care

When people whisper Ruthless 

Behind her back

She tries not to care 

When her husband doesn't come home

For the third night in a row

 

And Echo stands behind all girls 

who feel invisible 

when they cry out she listens

And whispers their words back to them

A warning to not love the boys 

Who cannot see past themselves

She plucks the petals off those 

Pretty yellow flowers until her heart 

No longer hurts

 

Artemis drenches herself in moonbeams

While insomnia knocks at her door

She has forgotten how to be lonely

Collecting lost girls like coins

Watch, she tells them, 

I’ll show you how to shoot the stars

When she kisses arrows to the corner of her smile

She thinks of her brother 

And aims for the horizon

 

Aphrodite dances at Pride Parades

Rainbows painted into her skin

And she feels younger than she has in centuries

On Valentine's day, she traces

Love Yourself 

On the skin of lonely people

And reminds them that 

They are the greatest romance of their lives

The goddess of beauty has stretch marks on her thighs

 

Persephone has flowers in her hair

And thorns in her smile

Tries again to remind the world

She is no victim

She chose to be a Queen 

Those pomegranate seeds were no accident

There’s a reason her name means “Chaos bringer”

After all, she brought a god to his knees

 

Hestia waits

Around abandoned fire pits

And garbage fires

Homeless, Hearth-less

Tending the fire for a family

That is not coming home

 

Where have the Old Gods gone?

Who knows?

But I can tell you where 

The Goddesses live