my mother was now an island far away.
They were the reason why my father
and his brothers were trapped in Tartarus.
But the women also gave me stories of kings
and their queens, farmers and artists.
Their great loves and great conquests
all won and gone in the blink of an eye.
Everything seemed so much more finite
when you were mortal.
Everything ached more, hurt more.
If you are doomed from the start,
you learn to savour every drop of life
in ways immortals never can.
On Love
Sometimes I would wonder about it.
When the oldest of women
and even the youngest of maids
would speak about a lover.
They would unravel tales
that would make me blush.
Stories about stolen kisses
and moonlight walks
which would make me think of
him again. The boy with kind
and tired eyes. The way he had
seen an ache in me and answered it
by showing me how to gain
the trust of the biggest of beasts.
The way he saw a loneliness in me
that spoke to him where I couldn’t.
