History was kinder
to the sword
than it ever was
to the woman bleeding beneath it.
That is how the story goes.
A man becomes violent
and someone searches his childhood
for the wound that explains him.
A woman becomes angry
and suddenly
the anger is the crime.
So they wrote Medusa
backward.
Started with the snakes.
Started with the stone.
Started with every terrible thing
she could do
and quietly erased
everything that came before.
How convenient.
To begin the story
after the screaming.
To point toward the teeth
without mentioning
what taught the mouth to bite.
To describe the locked door
and never name
who kept breaking in.
They studied her rage
like an illness.
Held it beneath the light.
Turned it over.
Named every symptom
except the cause.
And when she could no longer
make herself small enough
to keep other people comfortable,
they gave her a new name.
Monster.
As though she woke one morning
with serpents at her temples
and cruelty beneath her tongue.
As though fear had not been
living in her body
for years,
laying eggs.
As though every hiss
wasn’t once
a warning swallowed whole.
Maybe the snakes came
because her own voice
had stopped being enough.
Maybe each one carried
a sentence she had been punished
for saying aloud.
Don’t touch me.
I said no.
That hurt.
I remember.
You don’t get to do that again.
Imagine calling those things
venom.
Imagine hearing a woman
finally defend the borders
of her own skin
and deciding
she is the dangerous one.
They preferred her
before she knew
she could refuse.
Before anger returned
to her bloodstream.
Before she understood
that forgiveness
was not rent she owed
for taking up space.
Before she learned
that survival does not have to be
beautiful.
Sometimes survival
looks feral.
Sometimes it bares its teeth
before anyone reaches
for the bruise.
Sometimes it sleeps
with one eye open.
Sometimes it grows
a crown of living warnings
and dares the world
to misunderstand.
So let them misunderstand her.
Let them choke
on the version of the story
where she does not kneel.
Let them call her wicked
because wicked
is easier to say
than wounded.
Let them call her cold
because admitting
who froze her
would require names.
Let them call her impossible
because they can no longer
reach the places
she finally learned
to protect.
Medusa does not need
to become soft again
for the story to redeem her.
She does not need
to pluck the serpents
from her scalp,
lower her eyes,
or make herself harmless
so somebody else
can call her healed.
Maybe healing
is looking directly
at what hurt you
without becoming stone yourself.
Maybe it is learning
that rage can stand beside tenderness
without destroying it.
Maybe it is discovering
there is still a woman
beneath all those warnings,
and she is allowed
to keep them.
Because the snakes
know what silence cost her.
They know every night
she survived
by leaving her own body.
They know how many times
she almost disappeared
trying to remain lovable.
So they stay.
Coiled around her
like instinct.
Like memory.
Like a promise
she finally made
to herself:
the next hand
that reaches for me
without permission
will meet
every version of me
I once had to bury
to survive.
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