Jessica Lopez: Writings So Far

A Song of Styx and Stones

“You dream of murder. That’s the first word your barbed-wire mind puts to it, but later you’ll decide that you actually dreamt of freedom. The globs of warm cherries smell ever-so-sweet dripping from your fingers and palms. You want to lick the pocket knife, but mentally, you tell yourself you shouldn’t with the same fond yet firm voice that a parent employs to tell the child not to eat the raw cookie dough – “you can have some when it’s done baking,” you chide. The viscous whiffs of pomegranate make you stagger a bit. He is slumped against the wall, chin-on-chest. He looks comfortable, you think, exactly as he should be.”

A retelling of the Hades-Persephone myth combined with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice: overall, the tale of a woman trapped in Hell, desperate for rescue, or perhaps not. TW for violence/domestic abuse