By Erin Grace Thomson
coming home means opening an old, yet reborn t r a u m a—
One I willingly pushed away to study the classics
—I woke up in a manic state, and then remembered him—
Happy memories, tainting a toxic dreamscape—
home is where I rediscovered my heartbreak,
Bound by the melancholy of Hades cold stare
as I seemed to be one of the lost—drunken souls;
memories of summer became a hallucination, I questioned Hades,
asking if he ever knew of such heartbreak—
but he fell silent at my question, so instead, I witnessed t r a u m a from afar.
I have seen myself fall ill at his possible presence
and have grown weary of writing about him, but I find myself constantly being torn apart
like a fallen soldier—
because of my resistance to accept my own defeat: that there is more to my soul than a broken heart—
there is no point to write if it is not to change the soul.
And so I will stare into the fire and eradicate every memory.