Aphrodite

29

You used to tell me things on those nights spent in the company of moonlight and laughter:

That my eyes were beautiful, heavenly gems;

That my words melted off my tongue;

That I was the most loyal, most appreciative, most deserving lover you had ever had;

That you wouldn't dream of leaving me.

You must have known these all were lies, made an elaborate joke for all to hear.

I didn't hear the response, but I know you laughed along.

Why did you lie?

Where was your judgment when you held me in your arms?

I've never denied your power over me and over the love of this earth,

It's ridiculous that you would deny it.

You: the irreplaceable, unmistakable you were my reason for living

And the reason I wished for the grave.

You're the reason I hoped, leapt for joy, sobbed in anguish for so long

That finding my own hope and joy and anguish again is torturous.

How can Heaven and Hell be alive in the fingertips of one person?

Your divine poison must be the answer to my ancestors' love miseries,

The answer to why I spent my youth so afraid of love that I became hatred incarnate,

The answer to the hallelujahs I've wept into my pillow and screamed into skies empty of stars.

I thought those vast and sprawling constellations had lost their power when you left me,

But the world still moves, and the stars have reluctantly returned to twinkling above.

I don't hate love.

How could I when it when it felt like Heaven in my veins?

I only hate that it came from you,

For you were my idol of love, my patron of fertility, my guardian of trust.

But you aren't my idol anymore.

It's time to ignore the temple of your body when I pass by it

And stop shouting your name in frustration.

It's time to forget the doctrine you taught me with every kiss

And realize that when someone else fucks me it isn't a hopeless prayer to you.

At least they don't insist on my worship.

It's time to stop confessing sins I haven't committed to your ear,

An ear that has never listened;

It's time to stop leaving carnations at your shrine,

For they all faded into the earth in the end.

It's time to write a new chapter in this myth of life,

A chapter where my bonds are broken, the key to my heart in my fist and not in yours.

I won't rewrite history, for we wrote it together,

But I don't need you as a co-author.

You weren't so good at it, anyway.

It's time to rise from the depths of misery and loneliness

The way you rose so long ago, as depicted by art, poetry, and legend older than my heartbreak.

I thought I would drown,

Sink to the bottom of the ocean as you invaded my lungs.

But I have discovered that my legend isn't over.

It's only beginning.