Hecabe

If this darkness that I am in,
that I have become,
had a voice,
what would it say?
That grief turned me inside out
and still more came …
Being no longer myself
I could not bear more
and mirrored back to my enemy
his cruelty to me.
When he murdered my son
I felt he had taken me
into a room full of clawing hands
and blinded me.
So that's what I had done to him.
He didn't thank me for it,
and neither of us
have learnt from the experience —
not a jot. Now we are both
childless, in darkness,
he cursing me, swiping with broken nails
at whoever comes near …
and I wondering
what else I could have done.
When the violated become
the violators,
what gods will hear them,
to whom do they belong?