Orphean Epilogue

By Casey McMullin

This is the part

where I turn back and see you

fade into the sunlight, screaming

discordance. I imagine it sounds like how angels look—

Real angels, mind you. Seraphim with claw wings, sharp eyes

that stab into mine, unfathomable and ineffable and—

Holy, holy, holy shit.

Hell hath no fury

Like the sun hangs above us, shadows pool at our feet.

Nightshade petals curl around my ankles like fingers that burn and bleed

purple. Purple like Victoria’s dress, purple

like how wisteria weeps and bruises flush the flesh against

your will. They bloom now in full color and I am rooted to

you, my earth, the soil that will cover my grave

as I lie awake screaming and the world mistakes me

for the sound of stars twinkling, the way the night shifts and writhes

against sunrise.

Hello? Hello.

Sweetheart, wash the bleeding mud from beneath your fingernails.

Or don’t. Maybe you were just looking

for a new color to paint them with.

I hope my blood is just

as beautiful as you

remember.

Is this thing the thing you thought I would be?

I don’t remember feeling

this broken or bemused.

Note to self: Learn when to shut the fuck up.

But here I stand in this cathedral anyways, like the one

we should have married in. Now you’ve outgrown me like our cypress tree,

almost fourteen-and-a-half times my size. Now I yank on my heartstrings and they reverberate in kind

to play that song that is Cerberus’ lullaby, Hades and Persephone’s first dance.

She wore a purple dress, too. Just like yours.

I play my lyre like you play my liar

between breaths of how dare you and I can’t love you. But then you sink

your nails in, spooling red thread around your fingers, and watch

me fray. The fourth string snaps and the world weeps

silently: gentle heaves of my chest rising and falling

for you, again and again.

Yes, baby, tear me to shreds until I am light

enough to be carried away by the breeze.

Burn me like my old letters and watch the wax seal melt. Cry:

“Dear dumbass: you turned away first.”

Casey McMullin is a junior English major with a Creative Writing concentration. They love to write poetry with the vaguest of Romantic sensibilities.