Θλίψη (GRIEF)

Cassandra.

No prophecy dances on my tongue,

Just a throat full of thorns

And truths that sound like madness

To the ones I love most. 

My lips tremble with omens, 

but no laurel wreath crowns me.

Madwoman. 

A girl in death’s grip

who cannot speak of love without bleeding.

You don’t want to hear me.

Even you don’t want to hear me.

I do not dwell in Hades, 

yet I walk among the damned.

Crowded rooms press on me like coffins.

Even with you, my love, 

I shrink into the corners of my mind.

I am nothing but a shadow beside you.

Fool. Idiot. Burden. 

It aches, 

Not the romantic ache of poets

But of silence, grief and torment. 

Even your touch doesn’t reach 

the depth of my drowning.

I’m holding back screams, 

folding words like paper,

chewing and shoving them down my throat. 

You don’t want to hear me. 

Even you don’t want to hear me. 

There are a thousand hymns in me

But I am weary like Atlas. 

Too tired to speak – 

A temple of ruin. 

Love – how it sears. 

It is no ambrosia. 

It is hemlock in golden vials. 

Icarus didn’t fall,

he was pushed by the weight of it. 

I am not the oracle you want. 

But I am here. 

And gods help me –

I see everything. 

-Jaswantee