In his dreams the
Minotaur saw his many-mirrored reflection
in the beads of sweat that
gathered on the foreheads
of the girls who fed
him and found himself crying out
to his Father without
understanding if it was to the King
or the God Bull that
he sent his pleas towards.
Each morning the
guards reported to the King
his nightly pleas and
the torment they witnessed
as they girls drew
close and fed him.
They noted his horns
almost bent towards the girls
as if their tips
hungered for the touch of flesh.
Each girl found that
moment when she could not
touch Androgeus again,
the fear, like lava, dissolving
all of her and then
she would be dragged, dead,
yet still breathing, to
the King’s bed, ruined for a time,
she mute and vacant,
then sent home in a casket.
The monster was blamed
for each maiden’s death
and so the Minotaur’s legend
grew, all while the monster
was unaware of his
crimes, unaware of the deaths or
of the hatred his name
now instilled in lands; his name
filled the ears of
children as warning that evil existed.
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