Self-Portrait as Eris | Self-Portrait as Medusa by Caravaggio

Self-portrait as eris

when i looked back there was a trail
of golden apples denting the ground

did i leave them there i don’t remember

and i followed them back to high school
saw the bite marks in the shapes of mouths
that don’t talk to me anymore

they used to tell me how sweet i was
how green how familiar
how easy to chew

and i followed them home and home
was a gilded orchard the branches
fracturing under the weight of themselves

and i wanted to raze that edenic glow
to sow arsenic seeds in the earth

i wanted to grow strife
like it was a family business

i wanted to sow trojan wars in my bloodline
in the earth and in the bones buried in it

i wanted discord like sunlight
wanted to spit it in people’s drinks
to eat it with my mouth open

once i tasted that gold i couldn’t stop

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self-portrait as medusa by caravaggio

i bled politely, that is to say,
i only stained the sword

and after that my garden was empty,
it crumbled into gravel,

which is for the best—
i was not a gardener by choice and

those stone men were ugly
before they were ever stone.

and how unfortunate, the angle
of my death. i had no time

to put on mascara
before perseus broke in.

he put me in a museum
but he never comes to visit.

after all, i am not a good trophy,
i stare and stare and do not shine.

Eylie Sasajima is a senior at Washington College, where she studies English. She is the editor-in-chief of Washington College’s undergraduate literary & arts journal, Collegian, and serves as a poetry reader for Cherry Tree. She is currently an intern at Alan Squire Publishing. She lives in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania. You can find her on Twitter @eylieblue or Instagram @eylie_blue.