and losing my mother all over again.
Like someone I trusted shoved a knife
into my belly, and although my divinity
would not let me die, I felt as close to
death as I had ever been.
My voice was high and shaking
as I said to her, ‘Please, I have
travelled such a long way here.’
You must give me something.
The unspoken words suspended between us,
soft and pleading and desperate.
The crone simply smiled,
every wrinkle on her face creasing.
‘And that journey was not in vain,
child. Even in barren ground
there are flowers that find a way
to grow. But this is not the place
in which you will find what you seek.’
Disappointment
Gods do not know what to do with loss.
It is so rare for us to lose things
that when it does happen,
we use our powers to destroy entire lands.
But I was a Goddess with no gifts,
just a hollow emptiness
and a dry mouth that watched
as the crone returned to her loom.
She never once looked to me again.
Stifling a sob, I turned and ran past Thanatos.
Past the God in Grey
