Musings Of The Greek Goddesses

I. Persephone

He found me in a garden of red and gold, and with a gentle hand, led me down to his dark kingdom.

I had heard the stories. A ruler with a crown of bone and shadow. A being that carried the whispers of death.

But his eyes were oh so warm when he gazed upon me. His rough hands soft, as they wrapped around my own. Like I was a treasure. A blessing. Something worthy of worship.

They had said he took me, claimed me, trapped me. But I was born with a ravenous hunger that could never have been quelled among the flowers of spring.

He gave me an offering and I took it gladly, greedily in both hands.

I bit down into the sweet skin, relishing each drip of sticky syrup down my chin. I smiled, with red stained teeth, as I held the pomegranate in one hand and the crown I had forged in the other.

I was a Bringer of Destruction and a Queen of the Underworld.

II. Aphrodite

A thing of divine beauty, men vied for their claim to me. For a single touch, a single taste, they fell to their knees. My sacred body, an object for their sole gratification.

Never mine to give, I was offered to serve another’s purpose. Governed, stifled, and slowly smothered – but I was not a piece of clay to be moulded by someone else’s hand. I was my own, wanting for no one other than myself.

When I saw him, the man of war, he had let me take exactly what I needed. Skin against skin, we were a raging fire made flesh. With only the stars as our witness, every desire was given form, through each soft caress and featherlight kiss.

Never was I flushed with thoughts of shame or condemned by humiliation. No one could claim what was mine to give freely as I chose.

I was love. In all its gentleness and wonder. I was love. In all its passion and fury.

III. Hera

I had caught his affections. Lustful stares and sickly-sweet words that did nothing but grate against my skin. I had never wanted him. But with rough hands, tight around my throat, he ensnared me. Claimed what he saw as his.

Placed in a gilded cage high on Mount Olympus, I played the role of devote wife well. But behind the solemn veil, my heart grew colder, edges sharper, all warmth lost from the first brush of his fingers against mine.

The whispers, they had followed me. His absence and drifting eyes, the subject of their heavy judgement. But I was more than just his other.

I was a creature of devastating power. The Queen of Olympus. A ruler in my own right.

I sat upon his gilded throne, reaching out a hand and took and took and took. They realised too late the untempered wrath that festered beneath my skin, waiting to be unleashed.

I was something to fear. All would fall on their knees before and beg for mercy.

IV. The Goddesses

We are only a few of many but the past is held in our hands. We are the Queens and the Goddesses. We reclaim what was told about us.

We rewrite our stories.