Revision

There is a cave where myths attempt to rewrite themselves. They scrunch faces in earnest, dog-ear every forlorn fragment of emotion. Draft each sigh and squeak, thinking maybe something will come of it?

Seeds scatter on the hard packed earth. Candlelight flickers, scanning each wall and surface whether glistening with the grease of warfare or patched with the rough burlap of sturdy sack and trade.

Some beat their chests, some cower by the bullocks. Every shadow hewn and splayed.

Eurydice asks Ophelia, "Should I translate this under water or under earth?" Ophelia turns to Hamlet, "Am I not tender? Do I not wash over the skin like holy water? Be satisfied, love." Hamlet turns to Zeus, "How much control do you really have? Is every time mundane or do you jump at the sheer snap of every bolt?" Zeus turns to Hera, "Must we always choose matriarch or patriarch?" Hera turns to Eurydice, "Always send the reader under earth. If you stay on top there is nowhere to go. Except down, of course."

On the other side of the room Daphne tests, "We are revisionists." wrapping her lips around every prodigious sound. Unsatisfied with the taste of it, she keeps clacking away on her trusty Ticonderoga. "Did you know?" she asks Apollo, "poet laureate comes from bay laurel which was wreathed upon winners each and every Olympic games?" Apollo isn't paying attention, nods, hums. "No one remembers," Daphne laments, "the origins of things or the loss-side of battles." A few minutes later Apollo falls asleep under the boughs of a new laurel. It's inevitable, this falling asleep... a daily end we're all fated for.