{"id":32905,"date":"2012-10-17T19:46:12","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T19:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2012\/10\/17\/persephone-lied\/"},"modified":"2012-10-17T19:46:12","modified_gmt":"2012-10-17T19:46:12","slug":"persephone-lied","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2012\/10\/17\/persephone-lied\/","title":{"rendered":"“Persephone Lied”"},"content":{"rendered":"

fursasaida<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

ladyw1nter<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

The truth is, I was bored.\u00a0
My mother blissing ahead of me, rosebuds rising in her footsteps,
And I skulking behind, thinking,
Oh look. She walks in beauty.
Again.<\/p>\n

Her power could boil rivers, if she chose.
She doesn\u2019t choose. She scatters
Heliotrope behind her.<\/p>\n

And me, I\u2019ve no powers. I think she\u2019d like
A decorative daughter. A link to the humans
She feeds with her scattered wheat.
A daughter wed to a swineherd\u2019s just the thing
To show that Demeter\u2019s a down-to-earth
Kind of goddess.<\/p>\n

Do you know what swineherds talk about?
Swine.
<\/em>Diseases of, ways to cook;
\u201cThat \u2018un\u2019s got no milk for \u2018er shoats;
Him, there, he\u2019s got boggy trotters.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when he leaned in, smiling,
While we sat in a bower sagged with Mother\u2019s honeysuckle,
When he said, \u201cNow,
My herd\u2019s growing and I\u2019m thinking I could feed a wife\u2014\u201d
That\u2019s when I snapped, I howled, I ran.<\/p>\n

And when a hole opened up, a beautiful black, in all the pastels of my mother\u2019s sowing.
Let me fix the lie: Nobody grabbed, nobody pulled.
I jumped.<\/p>\n

I thought it was a tiny earthquake,\u00a0
Thought I was killing myself,
Starting a long journey to Hades.
It was a more direct trip
Than I\u2019d imagined\u2014
I landed in his lap.<\/p>\n

He just looked at me, said \u201cWell,\u201d
And kept driving his chariot down,
Flicked his leather reins near my face.
He did not give me flowers.
He never spoke of pigs.<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t speak much at all. Just took me down in darkness
And did dark things.
I liked them.<\/p>\n

I stumbled through his grey gardens, after,
Sore and smiling.
And the gardener said, \u201cLittle girl,
Little sunlit flower,
You belong in the world above.
Trust that they\u2019ll come for you,
But while you wait
Don\u2019t eat the food of the dead, for it will trap you here.\u201d
And I said give me the fucking fruit.<\/em><\/p>\n

But when I ate I could hear her howling,
See her spreading winter on the world.
My poor mother, who missed me after all;
My poor swineherd, starving.
Huddled up for warmth with the few he hadn\u2019t eaten.<\/p>\n

I spat out half the seeds.<\/p>\n

So now I suffer through the summers,
Smile at the swineherd who tells me
Which shoat is off its feed.
Smile at my mother and walk behind her.
My powers have come to me now, and in her candy-colored wake I scatter
Sundew and flytrap, nettles and belladonna.<\/p>\n

I smile and wait for November,
For when I come back to you.
Your clever cold hands and your hard black boots.
I don\u2019t ask what the leather is made from.
I don\u2019t think I want to know.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And I said\u00a0give me the fucking fruit.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Holy shit. I love this so much, I love this poem so much.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I smile and wait for November,<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

omfg <3<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Oh, look. She walks in beauty. Again.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is fucking fantastic. nympheline, storyqdayx5d, this is totally up your alley.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

fursasaida: ladyw1nter: The truth is, I was bored.\u00a0My mother blissing ahead of me, rosebuds rising in her footsteps, And I skulking behind, thinking,Oh look. She walks in beauty. Again. Her power could boil rivers, if she chose.She doesn\u2019t choose. She scattersHeliotrope behind her. And me, I\u2019ve no powers. I think she\u2019d likeA decorative daughter. A … Continue reading “Persephone Lied”<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32905"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}