i. You were so torrentially toxic to me I had to slice
my own veins to get you out.
ii. There was more chaos in the way you loved me than
there was in the winding weather storm that broke every window
in the house we called home, you turned that home into a
house.
iii. You claimed momentary insanity, like your hero
Hercules, the day you used your fists for the first time, the
same insanity that plagued Hercules when he slew everyone he
loved. I wonder if there was a storm where he lived that day
too.
iv. Harbinger made of hemlock and heartache, hurricane
made of hurt and heartbreak, you were Hera’s lesson of
harm and habit, you were impossible to break, but I too, like
you, have hidden the strength of Hercules somewhere inside this
harbour body that used to welcome hurricanes. I too have always
known siren songs that have bewitched men with more ancient
madness than you could ever imagine. I too have spoken words
that dripped with cruelty like a soldiers sword in a
battlefield, I do not use these abilities against you because I
have learned, I have learned that when you destroy someone you
love…there is no coming back from that.
v. I was tied to my heartache the way Prometheus was
tied to his mountain the day I met you. In my eyes, you were
Hercules then. Freeing me from my destructive punishment,
allowing me to finally breathe free. And like Prometheus, I too
forgot that Hercules was the son of the same God who punished
him so cruelly. Our love became the new mountain I was tied to,
the eagle forever circling to, waiting for it’s moment to
draw chunks from us again.
vi. There is no building from the wreckage of two
broken hearts lying in the battle fields of an Olympus that
will never be great or beautiful again. I wish you had seen
that before I had to force you out of my blood by draining the
poison you pumped into me during a war, poison I drank like it
was the antidote to my war wounds.
vii. Do you think in the moment Hercules realized that
he had killed everyone he loved, he chose to do those twelve
tasks not as an apology but as a suicide mission?
viii. I’m drunk out of my mind, and I just
wanted to say that you are no Hercules, there is no honor in
the way your fingers threw me across the room, with intent to
harm. There was no madness in your eyes. Just hate.
ix. I’m sober as I can be and I just wanted to
say you are no Hercules, because at least he grieved killing
those he loved, whereas you didn’t even feel sorry for
shattering every part of me that you claimed to love.
x. I love you and I hate myself for loving you.
xi. I hate you and I hate myself for hating you.
xii. On the day Hercules completed his twelfth task,
he travelled to the sea. Sitting there on the cliffs, he saw
the oncoming hurricane, as it drank from the sea. He dove into
the water, hoping…praying it would take his life with
it. Instead, it delivered him back to the harbour where a man
called Jason was just about to set sail for the golden fleece.
And I learned that the Gods did not want Hercules to die. Just
like the Gods did not want our love to live.
—Nikita Gill, The Twelve Texts in which I
Realize You Aren't Hercules