Milena Bee: Artemis Triad

weight of immortality upon blind eyes

in the summers when
the forests fall, and artemis wakes to dust and dirt
she finds a second home amidst the undergrowth. and she
finds her words as the sun bears down
overhead upon
vainest brother of array.
and the moon slides overhead.
and in the desert artemis counts stars,
and finds new solace
in communal silence.

(the hymns of attendants fall
upon deaf ears, upon fields of
recycled and rebirthed flowers.
hums of the mortal spirit,
the girls artemis
couldn’t take with her.)

leader of the pack, defiler of status and self
in the wake of ego death.

solemn arrow travels across the valley
neverending, arching
an unseen path.

— 

sleepless artifice
tosses and turns, wears notches
into the beseeched earth.

how many scars until
skin just begins again?

father zeus still commands wicked sky, able breath of self
absolving the sands, turning a new day

dimples in the moon
a turn of hand against porous surface
in familiar light. the storm strikes

and she rises, draws out bones from
the scorched earthen barrier between
above and below.

growth
from the cuttings she’s kept.
the solemn few who disappeared
under her cloak of darkness.
none dare speak, their voices hollow.

the stars say wordlessly
to thrive.

for the future moon

new nymphs grow
in the arid world.
the sandstorm raging around them,
their tracks curling deep down,
lashes batting away seashell tears.
with an inch of water a season, they learn to go without.

like tumbleweeds they go.

her girls grow round petals, orange and green
hiding their share of water deep in the earth.
rich underground infrastructure, for a pack of girls
worth nothing more than the slip of their shadow.

these missing bodies, there and gone
like the dawn mist, slip between the great grasping fingers
of the storm. drachmae fallen to the ground,
discarded
only noted as gone
when one finds the imprints left behind in the dust.

the cacti, richness beyond their years
repurposed into landmarks
guidance in the everlasting.

generational trauma passed down,
one girl breaking an arm off
to plant it in the ground, modern day seeds
of marrow and blood.
a halfway house of regenerative limbs
where they make camp.
every acre of burnt land a graveyard.

the hounds of illusion wave between slender ankles,
dancing in shadows
at high noon.

they howl for territory, the coyotes which follow the pack
for a scrap of meat sacrificed at night.
in their eyes glints a promise - a memory
cast into the sun.

this mutual protection, assured desecration,
binds them both, keeper and kept.
guide and guided.

the blood between teeth
that drips onto remade hands, dirtying both muzzles
dries tight.

their chimera offspring emerging
to grow into the bodies left for them.
then onwards.

mush, fka hounds of love

for fury road.

artemis drives deep
the chariot of the night, the undercoverisms
she’s always championed
hummed low, blood in the veins
in the throttle of the engine, dogs howling
the tandem message.

the secret resolve, so tenuous with the moonbeams revelation
casting aspersions alongside the illusion of girlhood.

her hunters wait under wolfskin, arrows trailing the smoke of fires cast out.

the road carries on, this phalanx of footfalls carving up
red earth. historic dirt birthing bed of every nymph, season
to season tilled and sown.

desolation sows itself the further they run, deeper into
the chasms of earth left abandoned.

abatement for only a moment
silence laid down on the carried fate.
a breath to lay waste and praise
at the altar, for those desecrated bodies handed off
lost in the voyage.

automation in the bones, the cohort in lockstep, days and days under the cover
of darkness, steel shining in the dawn light.
they run then, a great traipse.
adamant in carrying on to the edge of the map,
for those left behind
who sink into desert quicksand, the silt layer
bordering the green banks of styx.

the underworld hums down, industrial haven floating on
a never-ending dock
balanced on so many bloated bodies of the apocalypse.

Milena Bee is a mythologist and poet based in Los Angeles. Their poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in giallo lit, MIDHEAVEN, Beestung, Kalonopia, and Sad Girl Review, amongst others. They're also the editor of All Guts No Glory. They've been into mythology since they were old enough to read.