45. The Grief Abated as I Grew Older
The Grief Abated as I Grew Older
But something else took its place:
a wish, a curiosity, call it a thirst.
It came from the knowledge left to me
by Charon.
All things have a purpose.
Not every purpose is good.
In my palace, all alone,
the more I thought about this,
the more my need grew to know
what he meant.
Time passed so slowly for immortals,
but it did pass. In Styx’s waters
I saw my body was growing,
my childhood escaping from me.
I was a lonely child.
Lonely in ways I had never been
inside my mother’s home.
I felt her absence sharply.
Like an eagle’s talon lodged
inside my heart, a constant wound.
Perhaps my curiosity
is what I used to fill the hole it left.
All things have a purpose.
Not every purpose is good.