Writhing within with vehement wroth
In bitterness I speak of my soul
Made from the spent elements of ash
I am like a leaf that is trifled by the wind

And while it is truly proper for a wise man, 
To place upon the rock, his home’s foundation,
I, a fool, am more alike a flowing stream
That never treads one place alone…

Helen. (Helen, Helen, Helen.) 

You beautiful, treacherous girl.  
You caused too much—  
(Too much destruction, too much pain 

Your beauty is too much for this world  
Too much too much too—) 

(What do you do with it all? 
Where do you put it all? 
How do you cope with it all?)

I paused, staring at the sea ahead of me—bleak, bottomless, and breathtaking in its scope. My memories filtered through my mind in a similar fashion; they, too, had no happy ending. The words caught in a notch in my throat; was it truly a story worth telling? A story better left in the depths of a bottomless abyss? Then her hand squeezed mine, warmth streamed through her fingertips into my own, and the story spilled out.

As I speak, Cytherean
Venus is leading her dance
troupe in the dead of night;
likewise, as befits them, the
Graces hand in hand with
the Nymphs knock the earth
with their steps…