Last night I dreamt of Zeus & of Hera & their children. Eileithyia – with her watchful eye has followed me through the last two years & two dead babies. She whispers to me & although I understand her in the dream I do not remember her words when I wake & yet her words haunt me.
I awoke with pain lingering in my abdomen & tears on my cheeks. My husband asked me what was wrong, why was I crying & I maintained, “I’m alright, I’m fine” but I am never sure if I am.
The two dead babies in my dream – they float. They stare at me but they do not talk. I know who they are, even now, but they are not mine anymore. Eileithyia runs her hands over my back & through my hair. Whatever she says, upsets me.
I am not the same person I was before I met Eileithyia in my dreams. I am not as fickle or forlorn but I am the same amount of furious. There is a burning in my belly, a ferocious fire that wants to burn the world down – holding in my words, my thoughts & my feelings for fear of hurting people is like having lightning bolts streak through me minute by minute. If only I did not care. Perhaps I could let it out & the burning would stop. Perhaps I would be reduced to Ashes. If only.
We do not talk about these things anymore, my husband & I. I am too angry & he is too sad. All the waiting & the disappointment. The passion & the pain. It beats down our door every month & we fall deeper in all the time. We both know it cannot destroy us, we know no matter the outcome we are stronger together & stronger than anything the Gods could throw at us. But in the meantime, our daily lives are filled with hope & uncertainty; of conversations not endured & decisions not made.
“People ask me how we are,
We are, I say, mostly lost.”
Lightning Bolts – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Two lightning bolts were delivered to my room,
They were gifts from Zeus.
I rock the bolts in a bassinet of pine.
People ask me how I am,
I say “I’m all right, I’m fine.
“
I push the lightning bolts in a pram,
Till the sun goes down & it gets dark,
& the girls from Jubilee Street hang out their windows,
& they wave & ask me how I am tonight.
I say “I’m good, I’m all right.”
In Athens all the youths are crying from the gas.
I’m by the hotel pool working on a tan.
People come up & ask me who I am.
I say if you don’t know, don’t ask.
Zeus laughs – but it’s the gas.
& he asks me how I am.
I say “Zeus, don’t ask.”
My lightning bolts are jolts of joy,
They are joy boys from Zeus.
I feed them porridge in their booster seats of knowledge.
& in the cradle of democracy, the pigeons are wearing gas masks.
My lightning bolts play in the elevators,
They slide down the hotel banister,
& Zeus throws a gas canister,
& it spins around the pool,
As pigeons wearing respirators steal the lightning bolts.
Zeus wants them back.
O my bolts of joy,
O my darling little boys.
They are lost to us.
& people.. .
They are never coming back.
At night I watch them sleep,
& cry years of tears,
& it’s not the gas.
People ask me how we are
“We are,” I say, “mostly lost.”
Violet Ashes 