Princess of Hades

The clock oozes to 2:59, I pick up my ball of string. 

We enter into the mind labyrinth. 

It is dark, but I join Minotaur with ease. He has been waiting. 

A gentle kiss. We walk softly down the corridors and I hum the impulses of my mind. How I long to tip the dinner candles onto the table cloth, watch that destruction lap up the balcony, the life outside, the sea, the sky. I tell him he was the one I always loved the best.

Lady C droops on her throne. Shrouded in veils, as untouchable as cloud matter. She is the object of so much fear, hatred, despair. Misunderstanding makes her melancholy and increases her power. She is the hapless child of a monarchy, unable to abandon her role before her time is up. Each brazen lover that comes before her grows tired before the night is through. They turn away, but she cannot. She follows silently, helplessly faithful, head bowed. Daughter of Medusa, her charms are a strange version of her mother's before her. She is quiet, so quiet, pale to the point of invisibility. Those who look her in the face and show her respect are spared, but those who turn away are turned to stone in their beds, unable to breath alone. 

Cappella Sansevero

Lady C is not spiteful or discerning. She is from another world, the contours of her touch a mystery to the world above her. Who can dethrone her? None can tell, we do not know. She is my friend. I do not fear her, though I fear forgetting her. 

Tonight, as every night, Minotaur displays a banquet. There are two delicacies beneath glistening steel domes. One contains the luxury of hope, one the expectation of chaos. Night after night, I sink my teeth into the flesh of darkness because it is more manageable. It falls off the bone like butter, marinated in a full bodied flavor of familiarity. 

Minotaur, sweet Minotaur. How I wish you could cross the threshold of the labyrinth and come with me into the light. Together we could take the string and bind together love and anarchy. Instead, without you I feel

A match lit in my stomach, nowhere to grow
Helplessness
Quiet shame of the haves
A finger cut while cooking
A novel finished painfully
A tension wire between contentedness, freedom, rest
And
Listlessness, anxiety, maybe laziness
A heatwave
The corners of my mouth move up imperceptibly
When people say, see you in May
I don't think you will  

Conceptualized April 2020