beforethis:

i.
you wish you could rage against the gods, rage against the sky and the earth and the places below that, rage until hades comes to collect you himself. but death is hollowing, and you are nothing compared to achilles.

ii.

they often ask you why you chose to love a monster. you think of how he could have torn the world apart with his bare hands, yet he used those hands to hold you night after night, wrapped tight around you, to keep you together. you shake you head. you open your mouth, but you don’t have an answer for them.

iii.
achilles was meant to be a god. gods do not kneel for mortals, yet he kisses you like you were the one who should be worshipped. he murmurs your name into your trembling thigh, a name that should not be worthy enough to pass a god’s lips.

iv.
sometimes you wonder if this is what it feels like to love a god, to feel unworthy and overwhelmed by his attention. knowing he could have had anyone he wanted, but he chose you and what you can’t give him.

v.
but most of the time you wonder if this is what it feels like to be in love with a mortal, knowing he will leave you soon. knowing he will succumb to nothingness, oblivion and eventually to hades.

vi.
you wonder if you were worth his godhood.

vii.
achilles was meant to be a soldier, a hero to be worshipped in stories told to children. he was meant to be perfect, untouchable. instead he takes your hand and defies his mother. defies the rest of the world. 

viii.
you wonder if you were worth the death of so many men.

ix.
people come to see his grave as time passes. truths turn into stories, stories into legends, legends into myths. people forget. they do not remember the curve of his smile or the way his hair shone under the sun.

they do not mention his beauty could have rivalled helen’s.

they do not know how soft his hand felt against yours, and how it became rough after years at war.

x.
they do not remember how he gave up his divinity for a boy like you.

– j.c