THE WEAVE:

“So Athena,

when will you be opening

a haute couture shop?”

Pluto asks, where he calls

her, on the boat phone.
"I'm not," Athena says, in dull
response to his teasing.

"But Venus just walked
in the Door, and she looks
hot.  She says, you made her
war-gown."

"I did."

"I feel so sexy, Athena!'
Venus calls in the background.

"Great," Athena calls back,
"That makes one of us,"
as she fumbles with the bib
buckles, on her overalls.

"Why don't you make
yourSelf one?" Pluto asks.

Bitterness flashes through
Athena's eyes, and she is glad
he cannot see her, "Who
would contain me,
Pluto?" she challenges.

"What do you mean?"
Pluto asks, puzzling-
or maybe not, but wanting
Athena to say it for herSelf.

"My relationship to clothing
is congruent with my sense
of safety.  I belong
to no one.  I can only depend
on my own armourings.  The feminine
opens, like a flower,
when it believes it is
kept safe."

"Venus does not
belong to me,"
Pluto parries.

"No," Athena agrees,
"But she does
trust you, doesn't she?
Don't you think
that counts,
for something?"

"If Venus trusts me,
why doesn't Persephone?"
Pluto diverts the stream.

"Because you are alWays
stealing from her,
what she wants to give
you, freely."

…Later…

Pluto reads the letter

Persephone wrote him

as she left him…

After you, I kept
"getting mySelves into,"
unchartered situations

with older men, on accident.
My suitors line up,
at my coffee shop.

They learn my schedule.
They bring me crystals
to heal my root chakra,

and stalk me.  They want to
watch.  "Can she heal it?"
Yes, I can fucking

heal it, just like I have done
with every other part of me.
Leave me be, you bloody

vapid, vacuums of humanity.
They Love
to talk to me because

it means that they can look,
into my eyes, and I can Change,
them, with a smile.  "You

are such a Light.  I feel
like I have known you,
many lifetimes."  Yes, yes you,

and literally everyone else.
You are staring into a portal,
do you understand?

You long to merge with the Earth
the white man pillaged.  You see,
Alchemy is a corpse,

without a witness,
of 'Witch' you are alWays
the first.  It was so hard

for me to know the boundary,
and how nice I can be,
before I am in danger.

I felt you, but I could not
know.  You never let me
know.  How could I

know what I was feeling
was real?  Why would I
assume, my teacher wanted to fuck

me?  And if you are astral
projecting, which it sounds like
you do carelessly, just know

you visited me, plenty
of Times.  I suffered
from sleep paralysis for years-

waking up trying  to scream,
or having orgasms
in my sleep.  And sometimes

the ghosts just watched me
from the bedside.  But after
that first time, exorcised,

I had my little plans.  I walked
with the ghosts, but I tried
as much as I could not to

let them come too close.
Now, when I feel the invisible
fear on my spine, and in

 the Air, when I am alone,
I turn my Light up,
and I speak

aloud, to the Dust,
"The Light of God never fails."
It is tattooed on my body,

in my own symbology,
reserved for ritual,
to keep me safe.  So,

you're welcome for that.
You have created your own little
painful fetish, in my body.

Take that, Witch Hunter.
Stay there.
Why would you assume

your fantasies are just your own?
I have lived my life, tortured
by unseen waves, of which you

never let me know existed.
You are a coward, Magician,
unable to initiate

the Magick he must make.
It is confusing, when you take me
to the brink of Time,

but do not give me
your hand -spewing off
images and words,

willy-nilly, like a man.
Have you read Athena's
Idiots Guide to Alchemy?

Congratulations,
you have had a Baby.
You have made a sacred object

in real Time.
I look for your hands
in all the hands I see.

All the poets, and musicians,
they just want to sing Jolene
with me, and Love me

one day, in their dreams.
I'm psychic Daddy, and please,
don't fuck me without asking first.

I would have given you
what you took from me,
over and over again.

Forever spoils you.
I have to change, and spoil,
spilling over youth.  Forever

is too long to be
with whoever it is in me
that rises up, with a pattern

worth breaking, with a Spirit
worth merging, to shed
 the layers of this simple skin.

No, you may no longer
come in.  Unlearn
this piece of the masculine:

No, I am no longer. 
-your Daimon.