what is a name? — a destruction, a weapon,
a seed of divinity

you are flower before you are queen,
you adjust to ruling quickly and he asks you,
how? how are you so strong?

and you say, like certain flowers i too swallow men whole. you looked at me and saw a rose, but you
did not see me for what i am, which is a thorn with petals.

the men cannot fathom a woman ruling death
unless she was forced to do so.
no woman could rule without a man at her side, is that it?
you do not listen to them. you can be both gentle and strong,
you can love flowers, thread them through your hair,
thread them through the chains that had once bound you —
until you broke them. until you became them. until you bound him instead.

there is always fire here
there is always too much heat
there is always that burning

but they cannot see the way you smolder, Persephone, destroyer, you must show them how to fight the ashes and the dirt

once there was a story of a man who rose from the earth and kidnapped a girl as she danced among the flowers

this is the story of the girl who wrapped her limbs in roses and thorns and tore the earth open to take his place. the girl who stole the pomegranate seeds for herself, who felt blood drip down her chin like juice and smiled, smiled, smiled, always those teeth showing —

do you not see my thorns now? i am no rose. i am bramble and bushes and limbs.

what is in a seed? divinity? what is in a pomegranate seed?

nothing that wasn’t already there. no nightmare you didn’t already have. no thorns you haven’t felt before. oh, those thorns.

and they ask, what is Persephone without her husband?

and you say, even roses have teeth, ever wonder why roses are red?