Penelope by Amanda Budejen

Penelope.

Consistently weaving and unweaving,

Wearing away your fingers at the loom, wearing yourself away,

What is it you're working towards?

Nothing will ever happen if you're just retracing, rethreading, reweaving the same pattern,

If you undo everything before you've given yourself the chance to really begin.

Penelope. Where we see skill you see only slip-ups, negative spaces in patchwork.

Where we see life you see only stitches. Step back and look at the bigger picture.

Don't you know weaving is meant to be messy? Don't you know tapestries fall apart without the tangles?

Stop being so hard on yourself. You used to create to live, when did you start living to create?

Penelope. Your eyes are caught on the horizon but no ships hang there

(And even if they did you couldn't see them from so far).

You keep waiting for something that will never happen, in silent vigil

For all the time you'll never get back.

Nostalgia is as uninhabitable as the sea.

There is no oxygen for you there. Don't let yourself drown.

Penelope. It's time to finish what you started.

Penelope, perfectionist, procrastinator, you wait and the world moves on without you.

Ithaka was never your destination—

Your own Odyssey lies out there ahead of you.

Penelope, the watcher, the weaver, it's time to spin your own story.

You've always had magic. Now use it.

Penelope.

Bio

Her name is Amanda Budejen, and she's a Venezuelan poet based in Florida. She likes arepas, stories, and scarves, and dislikes talking about herself in third person. She was honored to serve as South Florida Youth Poet Laureate last year. Reach out to her at @mandy.budejen on Instagram or at amandakbudejen@yahoo.com.

Author's note

There's been a lot of retellings of The Odyssey over the years, but most focus on Odysseus himself; Penelope is not often giving the limelight, despite being one of the most intriguing characters in the story and holding her own against seemingly impossible odds, displaying as much wit as Odysseus himself. But while Odysseus acts, Penelope waits—ensuring her situation doesn't get worse, but not actively making it better. In revisiting this myth from a modern perspective, we can both celebrate the choices she made and consider what would have happened had she been a more active force in her own life.