I am bleeding.
I have no body.
My body has been severed in the most violent fashion.
It was one thing to be turned into a hag with snakes for hair.
It was one thing to be cursed with turning anyone who faces me to stone.
I can't be in relation with anyone except my sister Gorgons.
I was so beautiful.
I was the most beautiful woman—
gods could not help but fall in love with me.
I loved my body.
I used it well.
And now I am less than nothing.
I have been humiliated and degraded and now decapitated.
My beautiful body lies cut and bleeding on the ground.
I lie cut and bleeding on the ground.
I have lost me.
I can't breathe.
I can't speak.
I am no longer.
I want to scream,
but when I open my mouth nothing comes out.
I am bleeding, my life force is waning,
my beautiful body lies untended,
slowly slipping into rigor mortis on the ground.
I am horrified, terrified, and furious: but I am frozen.
Frozen now in this furious rage for centuries.
Is this to be my legacy?
Is this to be my memory?
Is this to be my "gift"?
The injustice of it all.
And now even you make light of me?
You who know all too well the pain of not being able to speak your soul's desire.
Of not being able to say, I matter.
Of not being able to proudly own your body.
Deny the body, lose your voice.
Deny the body, lose your voice.
from The Silent Scream of Medusa by Cathy Ann Diorio
Image sourced from Horsemanning.com
