Before the apple, there was the gnawing —
Hera eyeing Aphrodite across the hall,
Athena counting victories, withdrawing,
the three of them already in the quarrel's thrall.
Eris saw it. Not invited. Stood outside.
One apple — for the fairest — rolled in gold.
She didn't start the war. She just supplied
the mirror for a rivalry decades old.
I know that wedding. I have left that hall.
The stalled proposals, doors held barely wide —
not my hunger driving them, but theirs —
the chaos-currency of wounded pride.
Troy burned. I noted it and carried on.
The universe never asked me to belong.