Persephone
Persephone, the flower child of Mount Olympus, a girl created from rainstorms and fruit seeds
The apple of her harvester mother’s eye, Nature’s most beautiful flower
Drawing in men like flies to honey but her mother, the arsenic that kept them all away
And so, there were only bees and butterflies by her side, flowers, and fruit, and clean water
All the quiet anyone could have ever wanted, not another soul to talk to
And Persephone was starving for conversation, an ache that filled her stomach up to her tongue
Demeter will tell you her daughter was stolen, taken unwillingly, by a common yet godly thief
Hades was too easy a scapegoat, too sinful to be considered Persephone’s savior
But they will never reveal the whole truth, there will always be pages missing from the storybook,
So much more behind the curtain than an old man playing dress-up for the world
Persephone is no Dorothy, not all the blue and white checked innocence
And Olympus is no Emerald City, no yellow brick road to lead the gods home
Hades, though chilled cold by nature of his domain and pale from living under too many shadows
Still has a flesh and blood heart under his brittle bones, still has a pulse jumping through his veins
Despite what they will tell you he still feels alive, and he was lonely, that living king to the long past lived
Lonely for a warm-blooded body beside him, craving for someone to love and be loved by
He wanted to find a sun for his kingdom, wanted a queen by his side to balance out all his dark
He wanted laughter to tear down the lonely drenched walls of his kingdom, to build anew
The day Persephone vanished into the Underworld, the world died with her mother
Fields of wheat turned to dust, grapes became raisins, and leaves fell from trees like skydivers
There was no name to this plague of sadness, but when the gods suffer, everyone feels the sting
Demeter scoured the heavens and earth, calling in every favor to find her daughter, her love
But no one even thought of Hades until Olympus had run itself ragged looking for their lost child
When a wind of a word told Demeter that her daughter was beneath her feet she ran
Faster than the wind that warned her, ran faster than Apollo bringing the sun around the horizon and ran
And there she was, clothed in a black silk stola, her sunlight soul touching the darkest corners of Hell
A pomegranate sat before her, cleaved in half and missing six seeds, Persephone’s mouth dripping red
Hades’ head adorned with a crown of daisies and dandelions woven by his bride’s magic
But Demeter was blinded by anger, and could not see the joy drifting between the two
All she wanted to keep her crown jewel all to herself, keep her in the light where she could see her
But the Underworld works in strange ways, and Persephone had bound herself there with her hunger
Created a covenant that let her love her husband, forced her mother to let her run away from her arms
So Hades and Demeter sat down and bargained over Persephone’s time like it was a piece of land
Cutting her years into six months above ground and six below it, numbered by the seeds she ate
Dividing her love into fractions, her heart into segments, causing pain when she was without the other
All she ever wanted was to love and be loved, to find her missing half
Undo the damage Zeus did when Prometheus give man fire and put herself back together again
But instead she was split further and further apart, love spread thin like water over stones
No way to find all her missing parts, too little time and so much to fix
Persephone and Hades’ love story is one of sorrow and love, light and dark, good and bad
But it is still a love story and in the night they can both sleep soundlessly knowing the other is out there
Hands grasping the air next to the empty spaces in the bed next to them
Fitting together like matching puzzle pieces in different boxes
And they are whole