Persephone does sound kinda hot though
[Original Poem] The Next Last Dinner Party (Table For Two)
"The Next Last Dinner Party (Table for Two)" is not just a poem—it’s meant as a poetic exorcism. It’s a chaotic reckoning, fuelled by both love and rage, written for every woman who’s been dragged into darkness by men who think they have the right to take, control, and destroy. At its core, this poem began with me thinking about the Autumn Equinox, followed by the myth of Persephone, as is only natural, and then the song changed from Cocteau Twins’ Persephone, and SOFIA ISELLA’s The Doll People started playing. This poem lives at that intersection.
Yes, Persephone was abducted by her uncle Hades and trapped in the underworld. But I wanted this to be more than just a retelling of that myth—it’s about how women today are still bound by the same systems of control, still forced to navigate worlds built by men for men. Zeus, Helios, and the other gods stood by, complicit in Persephone’s abduction, and those gods are still here today, in our boardrooms, in our governments, in our living rooms, letting the same things happen over and over again. The wheel turns, and the pretty, shiny little things fall up and down the spokes, tumbling in motion.
But I don’t want this to be just another shout of rage into the void. There’s enough shouting into the void of late. There’s love here too—a deep, fiery love for the strength and power of women, and a frustration with the ways men, including myself, have failed them. Growing up, I was drawn to Team Rocket from Pokémon, especially James. (I’m not being flippant, I do have a point! though I have just been reading “Queer Troublemakers: The Poetics of Flippancy” so maybe there’s an element of flippancy, or maybe I’m aware I’m entering into a conversation that makes me nervous) He was a gender-bending, chaotic, flamboyant figure who didn’t care about traditional masculinity. His partnership with Jesse wasn’t built on domination of her—it was a fluid, supportive, equal dynamic that I idolised, and still kinda do. James didn’t try to overpower Jesse, and in their shared chaos, there was a passionate & all-encompassing kind of beauty. They weren’t about conquering (unless you were an electric mouse) —they were about survival, resilience, and shared experience. Everything they did, they did together.
Persephone’s Rage and the Complicity of Men
Persephone’s abduction wasn’t just Hades’ crime—it was Zeus who gave the nod, Helios who saw it happen and kept quiet, and all the other gods who did nothing to stop it or reveal it. This myth, like so many others, is built on the idea that men can take what they want from women without consequence. And women? They’re left to pick up the pieces, to navigate their lives in the wake of male violence and control. In the modern world, this dynamic hasn’t changed. I’m not saying it’s the same, like we haven’t moved on in the last however-many thousand years, we have, but it’s still nowhere near enough. Women still endure, and men still stand by, either unaware or unwilling to confront their complicity in the systems that allow this to happen. Women deserve more than the fucking scraps that fall from the table.
There’s something in me that wants to scream—“LEAVE CHAPPELL ROAN ALONE!”—because I’m so tired of seeing women reduced to objects or products of desire, consumption, and control. But screaming isn’t enough, is it? The truth is, I’m as much a part of the system as anyone else. I’ve been complicit, whether through silence or ignorance, and writing this poem is my way of confronting a bit of that. It’s not enough to say “not all men”—it’s about recognising the ways we’ve all contributed to these power dynamics, about doing the work to change them. Starting right fucking now. (I’m annoyed at myself now for having even included the words “not all men” because of the searches I’m now likely to appear in and because of how obliviously fucking stupid it is that such a phrase even exists.)
Persephone’s rage, though muted in myth, is alive in this poem. I’m angry, not just at the men who overtly oppress women, but at those who, like the gods of ancient Greece, watch and do nothing. And what frustrates me the most is that most men won’t even begin to ask these questions of themselves. They’re too comfortable in their power, too blind to the ways they’ve benefitted from a system that keeps women down. The truth is, even the idea of gender equality scares most men shitless.
I don’t even know that it’s anger anymore. It’s frustrating, and it’s exhausting, and I know that I have to accept my privileged position as man, albeit a camp, overdressed, flamboyant man, but I am tall and I am broad, I’m man-shaped. And sometimes I forget I’m a man in that same way. Not that I forget, it’s more that I temporarily overlook that I am one of “men”. I cast the same shaped shadow. So when I offer to walk a colleague to her car, and she recoils, I don’t immediately realise why. And then it dawns on me. Yeah, of course, cos the world is a horrible place full of cesspit people. I don’t think of myself as one of those “men” but how the hell are you supposed to know that? You can’t know that. I feel mortified having to give her directions instead of walking with her, because I’m then hyper-aware that she’s still going to be out walking in the world, and now alone. But I suppose the probability of something happening shifts slightly, and the supreme awareness of that subtle nuance can make all the difference. Even I sometimes walk home alone in the dark with my keys in my hand, just in case.
Anyway, enough stalling, here’s the poem.
The Next Last Dinner Party (Table for Two) Smoking out a haze of equinoxious gasses, All this binding reality should be subjective by now. Smoking areas were always beyond the bounds of objectivity. Where is limbo now? Existence barely rendered, and the cure: purely rhetorical. Laugh derisively at any & all attempts at unnecessary explorations of depth. There, there. What is architecture, & grandeur next to a TikTok filter? It’s only the artistry that feels the ricochets of time slowing as the darkness stirs into the impenetrable dawn. Curtail meaning, And eschew accountability. It’s all man-made, except man. History is a doodle fight. Sharpie versus a thousand pencils scratching at each other distractedly in the margins, Thick with the sensuality of erasure, X 1000. Give or take a few more thousand. Persephone has had her bags packed for weeks. Do you think she bothers anymore? Maybe there’s a little cup somewhere in the underworld with “his & hers” toothbrushes, bristles clumsily interlocking. Who gets the winter house in the divorce? Roll the gritted seeds between your two front teeth, crack, And don’t break your gaze, he was the one who should’ve known better. The truth that is captured by the veil, dead flies in a dreamcatcher, lunchtime He knew. He still fucking knows, you know? I know she knows he knows, and he knows she knows he knows, and she knows he knows she knows he knows. And now they look to me for judgment? It’s all a bit forfuckssake, quite frankly. Suckle on your pinkening seeds, And let the juices drain down your chin, matting on your chest, gather in your navel, that celestial, primordial bodyshot. Aren’t all stag parties hosted, or at least sponsored by the underworld? He said “it’s officially autumn now” (as though it makes a blind bit of difference to him). That was months ago. I’m still sipping on my chai & grinning, though it’s yet my turn to speak. I might scream just to see what happens next if I do. Almost always at the dregs as the car pulls up. “Taxi for Death?” Clocks fall back for no man. They’ve picked their side. Though the hands still wander freely. He asks what I'm drinking. Torn again between the load-bearing caverns of politeness and tearing away my powder-perfect death masque, watch me dance as my skin crawls across my deadening bones. Do you like that? Do you? “Oh, nothing much.” Fuck you. I can’t begin to tell the truth now anyway. There’s scarcely time. He’ll say something dumb like “she sounds hot” or “get it, Hades”, and I’ll have to punch holes in reality to bend him into shreds of dullened glitter. Another fuck-thoughtless nip in the blood of the universe, sandwiched between layers of dimension. And as his neck creaks & snaps, I’ll re-open Tinder, swiping on a broken screen, splintered with the varying drynesses of vague gasps in male superstitions, & centuries of bloodlust, no, well, me. I gotta nib this one in the blood & sign my name on the check before the manager sees all the holes in his restaurant. Borderline gratuity. At best. All I wanted was something with cinnamon. Persephone does sound kinda hot though.
Okay, now, back to Team Rocket, cos I really feel like I need to explain myself a bit more after that.
The James and Jesse Dynamic: A Beacon for a New Masculinity
This is where Team Rocket’s James and Jesse come in. (See?) Their dynamic was unlike any other relationship I saw growing up. James wasn’t a traditional “man”—he didn’t care about being strong, dominant, or in control. He bent the rules of masculinity, revelled in the boundlessness of flamboyance, and found joy in being himself. He was everything I admired but didn’t see in real men around me. And his relationship with Jesse? It wasn’t about who had the power. They shared in the chaos, and survived their endless failures together, and there was something incredibly beautiful in that. They didn’t need to prove anything to each other because they already had a deep understanding of their shared experiences.
James was, and still is, an icon of what masculinity could be. A version of masculinity that doesn’t rely on domination or control, but on mutual respect, curiosity, and a willingness to embrace chaos without needing to take from anyone else (unless, of course, you’ve got a Pikachu!) That’s what I want (not a Pikachu)—for myself, for the men around me, for the world. And that’s the future I’m writing towards: a world where masculinity isn’t about power over others but about power with and for others.
Imagine a world where men like James are the norm—a world where men aren’t threatened by women’s power, but instead, respect it, are in awe of it, and actively support it. James was confident in his own skin, in his own effervescent nature, and that confidence didn’t come at the expense of others. If the vibe called for a dress, sod it Jesse, it’s James’ turn. It was uplifting, it was freeing, and it’s something we desperately need more of in the world. Because, let’s be honest, the version of masculinity we have now? It’s killing us. It’s killing women, and it’s keeping men trapped in a system where we’re constantly trying to prove ourselves through violence, control, and domination. It’s fucking exhausting all round, surely? Not to mention unbelievably fucking stupid.
And what are we trying to prove? Who are we trying to impress? Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people.
Rage and Love Intertwined
This poem is as much a love letter as it is a rage-fuelled scream into the void. I’m furious because women—Persephone, Chappell Roan, Megan Fox, Billie Eilish, Kesha, Britney Spears, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde, Frida Kahlo — are still fighting the same battles they’ve fought for centuries. But I’m also in awe. I’m in awe of women’s resilience, of their power, of their ability to survive in a world that keeps trying to push them down. And that’s what fuels the rage. Because I know they shouldn’t have to be so strong. They shouldn’t have to endure so much.
And I know, deep down, that the world doesn’t need more men like Hades or Zeus—it needs more men like James. Men who don’t need to control or dominate, men who are comfortable enough in their own skin to support, celebrate, and actively make space to let women shine. This poem is a love letter to that possibility, to a future where masculinity isn’t something to be feared but something that can stand alongside femininity, in all its glory, without trying to take from it. It’s also just a poem about the changing of the seasons and enjoying a Chai Latte.
Here’s to the chaos, to the rage, to the love that powers it all.
Here’s to a dash of cinnamon in our hot drinks.
Poet Chaotique, blasting off again! x
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