Psyche

Beautiful.

They all called me beautiful.

But the love of the people, as everyone knows,

Is fickle. I had nothing to sustain me

But my childhood dream of the mountain.

They bound me to a tree

For a sacrifice.

I was afraid.

When the fear had passed

And the night had turned to morning,

My sister came. Maia came—

My sister.

She could not see, she could not believe.

It was if her eyes were covered with a veil.

Blind, she blinded me.

In one moment—

In the time it takes to light a lamp—

My world was shattered.

My light was snuffed out.

I was torn from his embrace

Stolen from his gaze

Banished from his home.

Beautiful.

Of all gods, he was beautiful.

There was hope left—

A glimmer of hope.

But the tasks I had been given were so many, so strenuous—

I wept.

All the days of my life

The ones I love most have sought to keep me from the mountain.

I had persisted.

I had seen the god of the mountain,

And I wept.

Orual

Ugly.

They knew that I was ugly.

Batta, Bardia, the king my father—

All of them.

It is true that I was ugly.

What had there ever been of beauty

In my spirit or my face?

I had nothing to sustain me

But my sister. Psyche—

The beloved, the beautiful.

My sister.

They took her from me.

I had thought—I see now I had hoped—

That she was dead.

But the gods are not merciful.
When I saw her again, she was happy.

Happy—in a deception.

I saw my duty.
I had to persuade her.

A stab—a tear—a promise—

And it was over.

I did not know what I had done.

I did not know what I had seen.

The gods are cruel.

They speak in riddles

And command mere mortals to comprehend them.

They take from us all that we ever loved

And leave us resting on nothing.

Ugly.

All gods must be ugly.

Long I suffered,

Long I traveled.

I heard, often, the weeping of a girl.

Her weeping became my own
As I journeyed through the land.

Trying to shake off the memory

Trying to escape the chains.

Long I suffered.