Three voices debate whether a monster is made or born, using Medusa as a metaphor for shame and self-destruction. They circle around a single question: Was it you or was it them? The piece is fragmented and lyrical, capturing the weight of being labeled a Gorgon and the paradoxical pride in bearing the snakes.
Chapters
Did you make yourself abrasive? Did you choose to be this way? Did you make yourself go crazy? Just to get through the day, just to get through the week. Did you make yourself a freak? Or have you always been the same?
Do you want to be a monster?
To have a monster you can blame? Was it you or was it them?
Shouting in the middle of the square.
Was it them or was it you?
Who put the snakes in your head? Do you want to make a difference? Do you want to feel okay? Do you think that you can do both if you just find the right thing to say?
Do you even think they hear you?
Or are you hissing in their ear? Do you want to make them fearful?
Did you put venom in their tears? Would you kill them if you could? Every single one who dares to stare, do you think that it's their fault that you have snakes in your hair?
There are whispers, I can hear them.
All the whispering and shouting, I can I can hear you. Let me be, just let me be. I surrender to my fate. Fighting never got me anywhere. Let me have his only power. I feel them crawling up there. Did I have to go through hell? Could I not have been And why do I have to die here every day just to get through life?
I surrender to the poison. Find me hiding from the shame.
I hear you've branded me the Gorgon so you can finally forget my name. I'll forget now myself.
Everything's become too much to bear.
Still, I'm glad at least to have a coil of snakes in my hair. Hey! Hey! Hey! And more! Hey!
