curiouser and curiouser

for the fans who cook or were wondering what this might be like in real life

they say he stole her, as if Persephone were only something to be coveted and not a goddess in her own right, as if she were not as feared in their realm as he. they say that he corrupted her, that Hades’s flower wilted under the stench of his death but they forget that Spring is rebirth, that if anyone could be touched by the underworld and flourish, that it would be her. they say that he tricked her, that she did not want to stay. but they forget how the winter drags on, how each year it creeps in sooner, leaving bones aching for a hint of her warmth, and it is not because he will not let her leave it is because she does not want to go.

HADES you look like the summer sun. i could live in the spring-tide of your eyes. i will make you a queen, i will love you with my whole cruel self. i will give you anything you desire. speak its name and it is yours. PERSEPHONE my father rules the open skies. my mother birthed me in a golden wind-struck field. there is nothing underground that i covet. HADES you are the only thing that blooms down here. i’ll build you ceiling-skies of sapphires, make clouds of pure diamond. all the floors you touch will turn to gold. i’ll build you whatever life you want. stay with me, stay with me, stay with me. PERSEPHONE you cannot make freedom out of expensive pretty things. HADES i am a god. i can do anything. PERSEPHONE you cannot make me love you. HADES [on his knees] i can scrape myself away, par down to the bone trying. i can prostrate myself—here, before you!—and rip my heart out of my ribs so that you may hold it in your shaking milk-white hands. PERSEPHONE and if i do not want your heart? HADES i will give you anything, my dark and darling wife. anything you ask. HADES what would you have of me? what would you have? PERSEPHONE [her hands around his throat] i would have your kingdom, husband mine. i would have all that you have and all that you are. will you give it? will you give it? HADES i will give it, i will give it, i will give it.