By Gala
Date: 1 April 2001
Penelope Of Ithaca
If you would love a hero,
you had best steel your heart
for waiting,
occupy your mind with tasks
small and large
to carry it from the sullen lonely of sheets,
and see to those things
that will carry you
till he loses taste for adventures.
You had best know that it does not matter
that his eye is alway on you in his heart,
Always there will be a nymph,
or sorcoress with a bright eye
and a taste for the flesh of the noble,
and if she has to turn the world to pigflesh
to get her way,
if she must dance for him wearing your skin,
by a half moon, so that he knows no better,
well that is simply how it is
when you have given your heart to a hero.
DO not break your heart watching for his signal,
weeping on a shore like a child.
You were not chosen for your tears,
but rather the steel you wear
beneath you skin,
that told him he could trust in your heart,
that vouchsafed his belief
that he could leave all safe with you,
and return to find no harridan scold,
no simpering maid driven half mad by lonely---
but a woman worth fighting past demon spawn,
insane gods, and flesh eaters
to call his, and hold again.
It is not the trickery of the sheets
that caught his heart,
You cannot trade the jewel between your thighs
and hope for love eternal,
even if you have taken him to places
no mortal has walked in this life.
There is only so much bliss
a man can savor---
but after,
where are your wits,
and where is your tongue,
and is your mind sharp?
A rock can listen well,
better than any woman---
but men do not speak to rocks,
and a cave can cast his words back,
but men do not love echoes,
and it does not matter
that my words dismay you girl.
You were hoping for a love charm,
an incantation, some woman secret
that bound a heart to mine,
and named me queen, or goddess.
I tell you instead the true cost
of loving a hero,
and that the secret truly is
being a woman worth the return to...
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