Chapter Text
1 Tartarus
I am ambivalent towards therapists.
Part of why is this: I am a King.
My past is bound in secrecy
For the good of my realm,
For the security of my subjects.
There are secrets I keep even
From the other Traitors,
Even from my own brothers.
What I can tell my therapists?
About a surface far above
Caverns of sorrow
As deep as Tartarus.
And I wonder often
What grief lies within
My own Tartarus.
That is a lie I tell my therapists
Many evenings for millenia.
I know what lies there.
I can't tell them.
It is a crass weakness.
I cannot ever tell my brothers.
How can I trust a brother
Who banished me to a realm
I can never leave, not truly,
When I never wanted to rule,
Ever, in the first place?
(I want in my heart to trust him,
As brothers perhaps should.
Another monster in the pit.)
My other brother, the one
Whom I know loves me
Without subterfuge nor condition;
He has his own troubles.
What monsters dwell in his depths?
What secrets does he lock away
For the sake of his subjects,
For the sake of his realm?
(If only we could be open to one another
As brothers perhaps should be.
This monster is quiet.)
But my equal in this realm,
My queen,
My goddess,
So wise, so loving;
So fierce, so powerful;
I am fortunate that we at least
Can share our secrets.
Indeed we must,
For the needs of our eternal duty.
But.
The last monster
Is the worst.
When I try to speak of it --
Even to my goddess --
I can only choke on my words.
I don't wish to invoke it.
For gods, words are power.
Our words can make real
Both wonders and horrors.
It is a crass weakness.
2 Prometheus
Ouranos is long gone.
We are the deathless gods,
And when we would die
Instead we sleep.
But is a sleep that lasts
For eons beyond your own time
Truly that different from death?
Surely such gods dream.
But is such a dream
Where you drift through echoes of the past
Where you wander through possible futures
Truly that different from the mortal afterlife?
I set for myself the task
Of judging mortals who fall to my depths.
Themis is Justice, and yet
She is absent from my halls.
I have observed as well
She is absent from many mortal lives.
I cannot feel comfortable
Criticizing the first ones among
Our deathless kind.
(Except for Ouranos.
Jerk.)
I learned that the mortals --
They are not so different from us.
I wonder if Prometheus
(Old friend, how I miss you;
How I regret I could not save you;
How I regret I trusted Zeus to be just.
Themis was absent then as well.
Just a fact I state. Not a criticism.)
... I wonder if Prometheus
Intended the mortals to be
Such mirrors of us.
I ponder his reasons for doing so.
3 Metis
Ouranos and Gaia are long gone.
Where was Gaia's justice?
Rhea is gone. Where is her justice?
Metis is gone.
Oh Metis.
My foster-mother.
I will never forget the nights
That you gently held me
As my mother once did
And could never again.
I treasure forever what you shared
On those silver moonlit nights:
Her stories,
Her wisdom,
Her love.
Oh Metis.
Why did you love him?
How could Zeus have loved you,
Yet then destroyed you all the same?
Where is your justice?
Oh Metis.
Your children,
Your foster-children,
Every year, one day a year,
We gather and we grieve you.
One day when all our animosity
Is, so briefly, laid aside.
Oh Metis,
Every year Zeus drinks deep,
Falling fast into a stupor.
After the first year he no longer
Wanted to hear us telling each other
Your stories,
Your wisdom,
Your love.
He loved you; that is true.
He betrayed you; that is true.
Which is the true Zeus?
Is your fate also our fates?
We cannot go against him....
Yet...
Eventually...
One day, we will anger him
Beyond his fragile reason.
Poseidon and I are doomed
To spend the rest of our lives
Trying to keep Zeus becalmed.
But we fail.
We are lucky our failures
Haven't yet ended this age.
Where are you, Themis?
Why can you not for once
Lay clear to us all with your scales
Exactly where justice exists here?
Why can you not for once
Cleave through the lies with your sword
And free us all from my brother?
(My brother.
I love you.
You love me.
But your love is dangerous.)
4 Zeus
My father.
He is not gone.
The Titan of Time
Cannot be undone,
Unlike even those elders
Who passed away
Into near-eternal sleep.
How I hate him.
How he hates me.
How he hates us all...
How he haunts us all.
I wish that the others
Had helped me guard him,
Had not left that duty
Only to me,
Who wished to never
Be within his power again,
Who had been trapped
Within its prison the longest.
But like all my requests to Zeus
Like all the promises he made
That they would be fulfilled --
That promise, too, was broken.
I fear my father.
It seems to be the case that
No matter how far time's river flows,
No matter how much we hate them,
No matter how unmasked they are,
Our abusers maintain an iota of power,
And its name is fear.
I mentioned this once,
Back when I still thought
Zeus was not dangerous to me
Simply because he once risked all for me.
He was briefly discomforted.
And then he laughed at me.
With me, he said. But I was not laughing.
"That's a good joke, Hades."
(At that time I did not want my true name
To fade away from all beings' lips;
How complexly those words hurt me.
But these days I only want to hear
My true name from my wife's lips.
I suppose this is a kind of healing.)
But Poseidon looked at me,
A shared knowing, a subtle shudder.
He did not laugh either;
And Zeus did not like that
We did not laugh.
After our (brief) punishment,
Poseidon did not ever again,
Until very recently,
Show the slightest recognition
Of our shared childhood of pain.
And I stopped talking about it.
5 Kronos
I know the other traitors
See me as a coward.
Someone weak,
Someone who couldn't
Even at the last
Even after all he did to me
Even after all he did to Poseidon
Even after all he did to Hera...
I could not stand steady
With unshaking mettle
Against the Titan of Time.
Kronos. My father.
Ouranos. My grandfather.
The worst tyrants ever known.
Murderer of my mother.
Murderer of my grandmother.
I never wanted to rule
Because I never wanted
To ever be in the position
Of becoming like them.
I look like my father.
I look like my grandfather.
My brothers don't.
I can't help but feel
I'm doomed
To always
Somehow
Be tied
To my father.
I can't trust myself.
I can't forget:
I descend from monsters.
I can't forget:
I am a monster.
I can't forget:
I look like them.
And that, for gods,
Must carry terrible weight.
Must carry inevitability.
Minthe was right.
I am thankful she
Reminded me
How worthless I am,
How terrible I am,
How doomed I am.
Every strike of hers
I merited.
Zeus was right.
I am thankful he
Reminds me
What a burden I am,
That I am the reason
My father lost his mind
In the first place;
That I only deserve
To be locked for eternity
With my tyrant father
Alone.
(Why do I feel he is wrong?
What possesses me
To go against him,
Time and time again;
My rescuer,
My brother,
My king.
And yet --
He does wrong...
Why am I not cunning enough
To convince him to change his ways?
Why am I so pitiful and pathetic
That I thought I could yet make him
Understand what he did to Kore
Was wrong?
Why is it that
Every time I push him away
I cannot help but feel
That I have wronged him?)
What is wrong with me?
Everything.
6 Kore
My wife fills my heart with joy.
When I am with her,
I know I'm loved.
But even if she didn't love me,
I would still love her from afar
And count that
A blessing I don't deserve.
I dreamt for ten years
Of a life with her.
Of having a family with her.
Of cherishing her forever.
Of knowing what it means
To love someone else
And for that love to
Somehow be returned.
Am I playing a game with myself?
Am I pretending to deserve her?
Am I truly in love?
What if my father, my grandfather
Actually tie me down forever
To a path of my own
Self-delusion?
Do I fool myself?
Do I fool Kore?
If I could always be safe for her,
If I could always be bound,
To never threaten her,
To never endanger her,
To always be hers and only hers,
I would feel better.
I want my love to be enough.
But Zeus' words haunt me;
But Demeter's words haunt me;
But my father's words haunt me;
I am just like him.