Two Poems by Heather Kays

Never Yours

They call me monster,
stone-hearted, serpentine queen—
but look deeper.
I was once tender, soft,
until the world taught me
hardness was survival.

Medusa, they say,
cursed by gods and scorned by men,
but what of the girl who loved?
What of the woman left shattered
beneath the weight of cruel desire?
The snakes are my protection,
not my punishment.
I did not turn men to stone,
I merely reflected what was already there.

I see Lilith in the shadows,
cast out for her refusal to bow.
A woman who dared to claim
her body as her own,
her voice as more than a whisper.
She chose to be free—
they called it rebellion,
I call it righteous.

Eve, they say, started it all,
but what choice did she have
in a garden full of silence?
Her bite was a hunger
for more than Eden’s cage—
it was her way to know herself.
In her shame, I see strength.
In her sin, I find salvation.
She did not fall,
she rose.

And then there’s Pandora,
blamed for every sorrow.
They never speak of the hope
she clutched in her trembling hands,
the last thing she saved
when all else was lost.
Even in chaos, she chose light.

We, the women of darkness,
the sisterhood of the misunderstood,
the ones they fear but never know,
We bear the weight of their myths,
yet we are so much more.

Medusa’s gaze wasn’t meant to harm,
but to hold the world accountable.
Lilith’s flight wasn’t defiance,
but the first act of courage.
Eve’s apple wasn’t betrayal,
but the taste of freedom.
Pandora’s box wasn’t her curse—
it was her power.

Call us monsters,
call us wicked,
but know we are heroes
in a story you’ve never learned to read.

You call us cursed,
but we are creators.
You name us temptresses,
yet it is you who are tempted.
We never sinned for you,
we simply sinned.

How do your sins make you human…
and our sins make us villains?
Can you taste the hypocrisy in your judgments?

We are not your scapegoats,
not your nightmares,
not your excuses.

We are the ones who stood,
broke the silence,
chose the fire over the chains.
We are the breath of storm winds,
the hands that tilt the scales.
Each of us, a force untold,
each of us, a reckoning.

We are Medusa,
we are Lilith,
we are Eve,
we are Pandora.
Our stories are not your warnings—
They are your reminders
that we were never yours to name.

*

The Matador’s Skin

My former stepfather is a bull of a man.
Filled with rage and misunderstanding —
He stomps, breaks, and smashes,
Never fulfilled by the carnage. Always craving more.

I tried to play matador.
I put on my bravest face and waved a red flag,
Trying to coax that bull away from my mother and siblings.
I purposefully wore a target,
Hoping my distraction and subterfuge
Might save the rest of my family some hurt.

Every bruise a declaration of war,
My skin now the only ground left to fight on.
Beneath the surface, the fault lines tremble,
Waiting for the next eruption, the next battle scar.
Blood pooled beneath the skin like silent rebellions,
Each one a promise that peace was never an option.

I am not the kind of woman
Who wants to hold hate in her heart.
I want to forgive, to grow, to love.
But I can’t love or forgive a bull of a man
Who treated my family like a china shop
He lived to destroy.

*

Heather Kays memoir/family saga, Pieces of Us, explores her mother Emma Mae’s struggles with alcoholism and addiction. Her upcoming YA novel, Lila’s Letters, follows a young woman finding strength and healing through unsent letters. Writing has been her passion since she was 7, and she also runs The Alchemists, an online writing group. Heather enjoys discussing storytelling, complex narratives, and the balance between creativity and marketing.