Pandora’s Reckoning
Part of the Threads of the Forsaken series.
They made me of clay and curses,
smeared beauty across my skin
like blood on a blade,
called me gift, called me grace,
then fed me to their hunger.
They crowned me with gold chains.
They kissed me with teeth.
They called it love.
I knelt in the dust of their making,
and the pitying goddess came —
cloaked in ash, crowned in knowing.
“Child,” she whispered,
“the jar you guard holds not riches, but ruin.
You were never meant to be anything but its key.”
So I rose.
I bled into the earth.
I kissed the jar with broken lips.
I tore the seal free with my hands
and laughed as the plagues poured out.
Sickness, sorrow, hunger, war.
I gave them to the winds.
But when Hope tried to follow,
small and shining,
I caught her in my hands.
“No,” I said.
“Not for those who used me as a vessel of their own.”
I wove her into the ribs of the women,
buried her deep,
seeded her in the hollow behind their hearts.
There she lives still —
a secret flame,
a stubborn, singing light
where no god dares to tread.
Author’s Note:
The ancient myth cast Pandora as the bringer of suffering, a punishment wrapped in beauty, blamed for the world’s evils.
In this retelling, given to the men of Earth who abuse her, Pandora willingly causes her fate and is no pawn.
She chooses to tear open the old world, to seed Hope where it will endure — not in the hearts of those who sought to break her, but in the women who would carry fire in their blood.
Pandora is not a warning.
She is a reckoning.
If you enjoyed this mythical retelling, you may enjoy the other poems in the Threads of the Forsaken series.