"Because Orpheus Looked Back" by Jiwon Huh

Ignore my screams of pain because in contemporary 

Society mortals scream not in pain but for love, 

And what are mortals if not for a loveless world? so rip

My lungs out, but hold my corpse because Eurydice 

Had everything she ever asked for when Orpheus looked

Back if only to check whether she was okay as they 

Walked to the second chance they never got.

Sometimes I look at my dog, and I want to cry

Because what are lives if not temporary,

What is a mortal if not hereditary? because I am

My mother’s heart and her melatonin habits but my

Father’s rage and his overtly fast metabolism so

I grind my teeth in my sleep so that my nose doesn’t

Grow any longer with the lies it is taught to tell

Because what am I if not fake?

I talk pretty so they don’t see the rapacious desires

That lie under my bones like carnal nothings, and 

Sometimes late at night I look at myself in the

Mirror and see myself through Aphrodite’s eyes

As she looked at Psyche and wonder where is my

Eros? But what is a mortal if not a heart beating

For no one? so hold my hand as I go to church.

Jiwon Huh is a junior attending Korea International School. She is an avid poet and attended the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, as well as the online Kenyon Young Writers’ Workshop. She has been previously published in Johns Hopkins CTY Lexophilia and Apotheca Journal.