Love, Helen. 

To the men who forget and women who suffer, 

You wonder why they think you’d faint at the first sight of blood when your evenings are a mess of TV shows darker than black coffee. They think you run on Starbucks and electricity, and your life is just this, a string of selfies and selfish. 

They are wrong.

Your brain is a maze of unmapped ideas on how to dodge them. You have weathered worse storms in classroom battles, corridor wars and pavement combats.

You and Atlas are one and the same My Dear, cursed to hold a weight you can’t bare and still standing. Not because you can, but because you have to.

In the wake of my name (worth a roomful of kings), my face (worth a thousand ships), my bed (worth 10 years’ war) they forgot who I really was. I abandoned a daughter and a kingdom and ran away with a Trojan man. It had been decided that I wanted to go. I did. But how stupid of them to think that I would ever love him. I was just another woman craving the sky flavored and sea beloved freedom; just another woman yearning for an escape from this prison.

Paris, you stole me away and claimed me like a dangerous prize. I don’t think you know how to love, you whisper against my lips. I draw away. I have seen love and given love. I pursue my lips. I am love. (Too bad, I never loved you. I am too intoxicated with this newfound independence).

Menelaus, you took my hand and led me like a meat to slaughter. You’re naïve and soft, you say somewhere near my shoulder. But destruction and turmoil is all you’ve ever brought me. I was carving my name into your side, and you were calling me soft, calling me gentle. I don’t think you were paying attention. I whisper, I never said I loved kindly.  (I never loved).

You sent thousands of ships and said they were for me. Were they? Or were they for Troy, the only thing you ever wanted? Or were they for your tainted virility?

 When will you realize that I was never yours to claim? When will you realize that when you treat a woman like she is property, you and everything you love will burn? 

The god themselves would kiss the ground I walk on, and pray to be blessed by me. But yet, Midas feared my touch. And then here you’re. Did it not strike you Theseus, Menelaus, Paris, Agamemnon, that you were just another strand in the tapestry of lunacy I’ve woven with the witchcraft of my lips?  

You told me I was responsible for all the evils in the world. I laughed. Learn this once and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle always points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman.

A single woman can uproot an entire world of men with a simple act as running away. No wonder they use everything they’ve got, to keep us soft and pliant. 

You think Achilles is an impressive descent? Well, let me tell you a secret. I rewrote history with the curve of my lips. Touch me one more time and you will learn what is worse than death. (My love).

In every woman that holds signs in her hands and marches through the streets screaming about the newest problem, in every woman that waits in the doorway, arms outstretched for her family, in every woman who seeks vengeance for the injustice, in every woman who wants to make sure the world never forgets her name and in every woman who raises her voice against the obscene yellings, the divine blood of Helen flows. 

No matter what they make you believe, you are my descendant, you have my rage and courage deep in your veins. 

Remember, that we were the women who weren’t hesitant burn ourselves, if it meant their ruin. 

Remember, that fists, don’t always mean power, and smiles, don’t always mean fear.  

Love,
Helen.

By Divanshi