This poem assumes the reader is familiar with the myth of Cassandra and Apollo. If you are not, you can read it in Cassandra’s Wikipedia article.
Content note: This poem has themes of sex and power, and is intended for adults.
Cassandra in the past, my kindred soul,
Looking to the future
With a Sight that needs no eyes.
(A Sight that needs no eyes?
Who can believe a thing like that?)
I believe, Cassandra. I know.
I know because I too can See,
But none believe me when I tell what I can See.
What has cursed both your prophetic gift, and mine,
That we can’t share with others Truths we know?
Oh, I learned the story long ago,
The story told of you and of Apollo:
The god whom you betrayed (they say)
Who righteously (they say) punished you for breach of contract
Declining to fulfill the promise
Written in your flirting,
Teasing god Apollo, driving him insane with unquenched desire.
How could you?
He gave to you the gift of prophecy.
You knew full well
The kind of thanks he wanted in exchange
(they say).
And so, Apollo cursed your prophecies,
By spitting in your mouth,
That they would never be believed
By any man or woman
(they say).
Thus ever more,
Cocktease you’ve been branded,
For centuries so slandered
By men.
Yes, by the men who wrote the story
Of Apollo and Cassandra
And passed it down to me.
But I know — my Sight shows me — what really happened.
Let my words be heard, whether they are heeded or are not.
Apollo, god coming to you as a full-grown man —
To you, Cassandra, still a girl —
A girl for a boy to love,
Not for a man, nor for a god as man appearing,
A god whose immaturity
Denies to him the possibility
Of adult passion with an adult woman.
Like every man-boy,
A gift, he thinks;
A gift will certainly seduce her;
A gift, yet with an obligation:
An obligation that she thank him —
Thank him, the giver who’ll be satisfied with gratitude in just one form —
The satisfaction of his wayward cock.
What gift gave he?
Not man-gift, nor even boy-gift, but god-boy gift.
“What girl would not desire to know her future?
Don’t they all?” (he thinks).
And so, in his self-serving magnanimity
He bestows on her the cruelest gift —
The gift of prophecy.
And then, without delay
His fevered, sweating body presses against hers
To claim what (he believes) she must offer him in gratitude.
Presses he with hands, with lips, with raging cock
Demanding, needing that she melt
And offer up her body, her most private parts
To him.
And she says,
“No.”
Now angry, she says, “I did not agree to this.
Take back this power of prophecy,
A gift that comes with obligation is no gift,
But an attempt to barter,
And I barter not my intimacy.”
But alas, a gift god-given cannot be given back or taken back.
Such is the way of gods.
Apollo, panting, wanting, is at a loss,
Needing (he says) some form of release.
(Such is the way of boys.)
If not her secret part,
He begs and wheedles for consent to use
Her virginal, young, pure, sweet, wet
Mouth.
And she is weary of his pleading,
And weary of his pestering,
And weary of her fear, for he’s more powerful than she.
She wishes but to send him off.
And so, the sooner to be free of him,
She hesitates a moment,
But then slowly,
(Eyes closed),
Reluctantly,
She kisses it.
And then the godly juice bursts forth.
Her lips it soils, her tongue, her teeth, her throat.
The god says, with a sneer,
“Now all shall know that you suck cocks!”
“Unfair!” she cries. “You forced me to!”
“Oh no,” says he, “you begged to suck me off!”
“Not true!” she yells.
His final words defeat her:
“Whom will they believe:
A mighty god like me,
Or a shame-filled, simple girl, like you?
You know the answer, dear Cassandra.
And having lost your credibility with that,
None will e’er believe a word you ever say
Though you shall prophesy The Truth for all your days.
And when you, some day, as priestess in my temple,
Offer sacrifice to me,
You will this day remember,
When you sacrificed
Your capability
To tell The Truth and be believed.”
