Mythos Poem by Paige Nielsen

Bittersweet torture
Crying from the depths of
Desperate passion
Begging to never leave
No release to Tartarus or Hades
Bathe in Lethe to forget the world
Wash in Acheron to erase the golden touch
Armageddon of the heart
Screams no mercy in a search for disillusionment
Hairline cracks rim the eyes
Bloodshot after outpouring a soul in butterflies
Nascent, throbbing, primordial life
Hastens to judge, label, then throw away
The corpses
The decapitated heads
The jugulated spines
Interred in a body of loam
Grave-earth spilling onto marble
Bearing faceless names
And carven roses
But every rose has thorns—
They’ll make you bloody
Slog through Tokyo and Paris like Godzilla
Until you drown
Lock the taints and stains
And pain inside a coffin
Lose it in the mausoleum
Left to wither and bare bones
Until Pandora releases it
She’ll steal your heart
She’ll blank your mind
Persephone, Queen of the Damned
Stolen from innocence, eating the fruits of Styx
She languishes
Ah, the early days