'Syrinx' by Karen Gonzalez-Videla

If she had known, she would have outlined specifics, begged her fellow nymphs to turn her into anything else. A wasp, perhaps, sting extended into blade, high-pitched hum like speakers. A flame, stronger even than the mighty phoenix, able to stop ash from rising, re-rising, birthing back the things it shouldn’t. A spike-filled mountain, unreachable, unclimbable. A stalagmite. Untouchable. She wishes they had at least filled her head with hisses. She wants to build stone, breathe stone, turn words and gazes into stone. She wants her shrieks to grow teeth.

Reeds don’t have teeth. Reeds bend, like girls who try to mumble no, girls who mean it but can’t say it, who say it but can’t persuade them. This reed still bleeds, she thinks. She winces at the half-goat, half-man’s fingers wrapped around her waist. They rip her from the ground. They turn her yet again into something she’s not. Why is it, she thinks, that even after death, I am destined to be nothing but someone else’s melody?