I would be as wormwood,

my leaves wand’ring with the breeze

were it not for my covetous parents who rose from the seas so long ago--
with thoughts they could do more than their mother, wise and old.

In my woe I would remain --
until my white and yellow petals no longer waxed and waned,
until my bitter-green wormwood oil left my withered veins.

Until like a drop of antidote I soothed the poisoned and their foolish claims.
Until I countered the pollutants that so quickly convoluted their honest, humble aims.
Maybe then perhaps they would see what they had done to me:
destroyed my void with cruel and sumptuous ways.
Let the liquid, drop by drop, consume their very core.

I would be as wormwood and commune with all the earth
were it not for brazen men who conquered then dispersed.
Who claimed to be a single force, when in the end, destroying who I am,
they turned against each other with no sense of oneness with their kin.
A treacherous vine entraps them as it does my weakened self.
Poison! Poison! Poison in my very soul!
Feel it as it takes its wretched toll on me--it must consume, I must obey.
My natural wonderment and respect must both undoubtedly give way.

The bitter-green wormwood oil, blood within my withered veins,
entrapped by pois’nous greed and all its evil ways.
Changes me and who I am, a victim now of happenstance.
Artemis, my sacred moon, save me now and heal my wounds!
I fear I can no longer escape this self-destructive trance.

Wax and wane to make me sway, maybe then I’ll learn to stray
from men whose greedy, blackened hearts rule their own domains
and think that solely gives them right to justify their treach'rous reigns.

Teach me how to make them slow, intoxicate their minds.
Then my goddess I shall serve, the slain will one day break away.

I would be as wormwood, intoxicating wicked man--who forgot his earthly ways,

if only he would learn to be, instead of use me and my body raze.