Orpheus in Bordertown

by NATALIE HAMPTON

1. Orpheus was named for Greek mythology. Classic tale: hero rewarded in love, maiden
   suffers for his stumbles. No ailment for him, save a grated-over heart, but heroes remarry
   and recover by dawn.
2. Orpheus liquified words for his parents’ mouths in translation to their native tongue.
   They swallowed some and opened their mouths with the rest, unspoken words pooling
   out. A hereditary oil spill.
3. Orpheus played the piano sober and the harp drunk, the music a language beyond
   bordered lines drawn in sand. On weekends, he tried to pull notes from the air and fold
   them into origami cranes, but they crumbled in his grip. He could never sink his teeth
   wholly into permanence, pomegranate staining his mouth red before he reached
   the seeds.
4. Orpheus fumbled and sold his name like black-market liquor, intoxicating the mind.
   Every time diluted, every mention mispronounced, it made its way down foreign markets.
   Syllables blended into one: profit.
5. Orpheus drove border to border once an eclipse. Bugs splattered his windshield; he
   buried prayers in each one and imagined their final buzzings as songs, and they died
   content on impact with music born of their cuticle wings.
6. Orpheus met a girl named for Greek mythology. Untold tale: heroine coerced into love,
   ended life on her own terms. Wound on her ankle from a viper strike but no hurt on her
   heart. To stay dead, she was content.
                                                                           They say she begged him to turn around.

Natalie Hampton is a junior at HSPVA in the Creative Writing Department. She is a 2022 YoungArts Finalist in Creative Nonfiction and a Scholastic Gold Medalist. She is the Founder and President of the Inclusion of the Disabilities in the Arts club. Beyond writing, she enjoys playing soccer, working in activism, and volunteering.