Jacquelyn Bauman

“They’ve kept the truth
about Persephone a secret,
burying it deep below
Hercules’s murdered wife
and all of Zeus’s affairs.
It’s dangerous, you see,
a spark threatening to
ignite a long dead flame.

Power.

She loved her power,
the Queen of the Dead,
to forever reign
in the fires of hell.
She wore her crown
like a beacon;
a beautiful queen,
plotting against her king.
They never wanted you
to know the hunger of Persephone,
how she starved for something
other than pomegranates.

Control.

The primal thirst
that burns all women’s throats,
denied by eons of men.
Listen closely to the voice from hell, sweetheart.
“You are a queen;
don’t wait for a king.”
― Emily Palermo

“We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead