Day 2: Myth

Today's prompt on the NaPoWriMo site was to use myth as inspiration. It implicitly said not a Greek or Roman myth, but oh, you're not a poet if you don't take liberties with the 'rules'!

I had the Prometheus story in my head for a while now - the one where he is tied to a rock and an eagle comes and eats out his liver, only for it to grow back and the eagle return to tear it out again, over and over. Never-ending pain, eternal punishment. All because he dared to steal fire from the gods. A powerful meditation on pain this, and I got to thinking about the phrase 'eaten  by regret'...

The Prometheus Effect

'The mind replays what the heart can't delete...' 

Every night
bound to the bedrock 
of sleep, deep
in the ruffling dark, 
the eagle of regret 
rises 
to tear with its beak

at my offending heart. 

Every night 

the incessant nipping

of what could have been, a wound
that never closes. Your loss -

repeated, replayed 
in cruel ways

blots out

the recovery of days. 

Every night 
my heart is eaten like prey, 
flesh ripped from fantasy.
My punishment 
for playing with fire. Torture 
of the kind

only mythic heroes
can endure.