Gilmara
Echo
I use my voice. I use my voice like a shield from the hungry eyes of the old man. I speak endlessly to his wife who cherishes my presence and delights at my stories. And her husband does not bother to seduce me. There is no way. His wife won't leave my voice. She sits close to me and lets me speak directly to her. She wraps my voice around her like a shaw on an autumn night. And together we spend hours talking until her husband is fast asleep. He is busy in the world finding others who don't like to speak. They cannot protect themselves. They have no shields, and despite their protests he takes them all. They are like branches on a tree where the flowers have yet to bud. And he snaps them off and whips them through the air. He brandishes those girls, and when he's done they are kindling. They warm the room where I sit with his wife and tell her the stories and keep her so close to me. But one morning I woke and I could feel the trembling dryness of my throat. When I went to speak, there was nothing but rasp and air. Still I tried to distract the woman but she could not stand to hear my voice so broken and so cold. She saw her husband coming in with another bundle of twigs and she recognized one of them as the girl who went to school with her son. She was enraged. She looked at me with her hollow angry eyes because she assumed that I had been keeping her attention so that her husband could hunt the woods with his fever. When she banished me from her home, she imprisoned me in my own. I had no one to hear my stories. I would listen to the people in the streets. My ears grew keen because I was hungry to hear them speak. I would repeat the stories to myself so that maybe one day the woman would take me back and let me tell these stories to her as we sipped our tea and held our feet so close to the fire. I could feel my voice dying. Repeating the stories had worn it out without the reward of an audience. I was dying. Into the woods I went, but the old man did not see me as a twig. And that's when I saw the brilliant beautiful bird that was perched at the edge of a lake. It knew its beauty because it stared into the water where its reflection was the second most beautiful thing on earth. I approached the bird but it was scared of my withered arms and legs and my sunken torso. The bird looked up at me and made an awful noise with its throat which I felt compelled to repeat. And then the bird hopped so gently but so quickly so that it was on the other side of the lake with its back to me. Well I was ready to fall into the earth and tumble to my grave. I was slayed by this beautiful creature. I fell to my hands and knees and then tumbled to the ground where my head hit a rock that cut my skin. The blood that I saw spill on to the dusty rock looked like the red feathers of the bird, and I thought about everything that I had lost. How dare this bird reject me? Who was he to turn his back on me just so that he could stare uninterrupted into himself. I picked up the rock and I took careful aim, and I launched it at the bird. Well, he was so busy with his reflection that he did not hear or see the rock hurtling through the wooded air. When it hit him in the back, he lost his footing and fell into the lake. The blow had dazed him and he was unable to tell up from down. He sank and sank, faster than the rock, down into the lake that had once been such a comfort to him. I never did see or hear that beautiful bird again. And when I looked out past the lake, I saw a field of flowers. I turned my guilt into those flowers and every time I would see them again I would be happy to repeat the bird's last words, "Oh me, oh my, I'm killed. I'm dead." I would echo those words again and again and warble them to any ear that would listen.
Eurydice
I died. I felt its fangs pierce my skin and crack the bone that sticks out, and then the venom. And I died. When I fell it was as if the flesh of my body turned to sap and everything simply splashed out of me. My spirit dropped straight down through the earth and the roots and the rocks and the worms and everything that's dead until eventually I landed in a boat. I knew where I was. I knew where I was going. It happened so fast. There was a flash in my head of the dark tunnels ahead of me, and then I thought of him. I thought of my love with the elegant songs that he would rip from his heart. In the forest where I was killed, there was a wantonest man, a minor man, and he chased me into the mouth of that snake. His lust for me ended my life, and my only love would never again sing to me his sweet songs of seduction. I did not choose to be chased. And I did not choose to die, but here I am in the underworld. Being ferried into the arteries that spread down into the darkest holes of the earth. This is where I found the most uncomfortable place, and I twisted into the roots of the tree that once was my home. You cannot wait when you are facing eternity. There is nothing to wait for. Everything is present tense but everything is nothing. And in my mind I tried my best to recreate the songs of my husband. He played his harp so perfectly. He could charm the Sun to set and the moon to turn to powder. His powers were immense. And when he put down his instrument, he would lie with me in our bedroom. And he would not need to sing the songs of seduction. There were no songs needed. It was his love alone that wooed me and made me swoon. His hands and his jaw and the muscles of his back. These were the instruments we played together. When we were together this way, the only thing he had to play was me. And so as I settled into my eternals sleep, I recreated the songs in my head and made every ounce of my blood boil until I almost thought I could hear the songs echoing through the underworld. As I sank into the oblivion of my death, I knew I could hear the songs playing somewhere else in another chamber or hall or bedroom of this darkness that never goes away. And quickly the songs grew louder and I knew that anyone with ears was falling under his spell. He is here! He had used his music to seduce his way into hell. He is here. And it wasn't long before I felt his hands on my cold dead skin, and like the ice that cracks when the spring comes, life spread across my body and I was awake. He told me that there was only one way. I would have to follow him out of this hole, and he was not allowed to turn back and see me. As he spoke I barely listened. It wasn't my life that I was glad to have again. It was the love that came with being alive for him that filled me with ecstasy. He had defeated death to be with his wife once more. I would follow him anywhere. As we left, I could feel the lightness of my step. It was as if I was literally floating out of hell. He was several steps ahead of me, and I was quiet. I was holding in everything that was now living so that I could give it all to him once we emerged into the light. I know my husband. There is no greater confidence on Earth than this man with his instrument in hand, but there are other times when his confidence isn't as strong. When he is living and breathing as a mortal, he can feel the doubt of breathing and sinning. And I saw his beautiful face walk into the light of the living, but before I could escape the shadow, he nervously looked over his shoulder to make sure I was there. I know that the silence terrified him because his power was in all the sounds of the world. Sound was his heaven. Sound was his love. My quiet steps worried and terrified him. He made only this one fatal turn, and I was pulled directly back to the underworld. I could read him as he disappeared from sight, and his expression told me everything. He would see to it that we would be together again. He would send himself to hell for me. He would end his life and his music and his solitude just so he could crawl into the crooked hole next to mine.
Aphrodite
I am the ransom. I am what they gave to him so that he would unchain his own mother. What kind of man is this? Am I to love him? He is to be my husband. He is jealous and vindictive and bent in the most crooked way. His body looks like a question mark. Like a shepherd's staff. And he works nightly in his shop with his hammer. His mother rejected him because of his deformities, and he tricked her and punished her and locked her in her home. And then my own love, his brother, betrayed me. He gave me to his brother. You see, I was born in foam. I was the product of violence. And I am the reason that you hunger for your lover. I am the lubricant. I am a shellfish. An oyster. And you move me from my shell into your mouth and down your throat with not much thought of the endless consequences. But what does that matter to me? I loan my name to everything that has anything to do with love. And here I am nailed to the floor of my house of marriage. And every door weighs a thousand pounds. And there's not a soul who wants to free me. Yes, my lover. You speak to me. You come to me with your own form of anger. With your weapons. With your war. As my husband hammers away at the armor you would one day wear, you fill the quiet hallways and bedrooms of the house that has never belonged to me. It doesn't take an oracle to figure out why you would want your brother's wife. You hate him. But then again, you wanted me enough to only want me. I am not a real thing to my husband. I was not heavy like a piece of steel. Never did he heat me in the forge and hammer me into something useful. Long into the night he would spend his nuptials with his sweaty arms alone, and I would explore every corner of the bed with my angry lover on top of me. And we would wait for the sun to stick his belly over with the edge of the earth because if we did not slip out before the light hit my husband, my husband would know of our own sweaty truth. It was only in those hours of darkness that I could forget how little anyone thought of me. I could be somebody who took up space. Even though my lover was driven by revenge and steeped in conflict and war, when he was with me in those hours I believe he thought I was real. And so I think back to the shell that was my womb. I am a painting to some. I'm a song to others. I am a reason to relent. I am a reason for revenge. And when the sun comes up, my husband traps us both and now I am quite literally next to nothing.
Clytie
I could not stand to see him with her. He would climb up into the middle of heaven and burn everyone who sat on beaches or on rocks or in the backyard or in the ocean. And I would put my hands carefully over my eyes to do my best to look at him. Loving him was dangerous. I was the ocean. I was alive in the ocean. One of the waves. And he was everything to all of us. It was exciting. To see him lift the heavy gold across the sky and feel his absence every night was thrilling and desperate. And when I knew that he loved another, I wanted nothing more than to burn her myself. Your sentences are mine. Your stanzas. They entered me and stayed there. They piled up. I felt your words inside of me. I felt your hands, your burning hands all over me. There was no shadow for us to hide. There was no witness to see because who can see you? Who dares? And there I was, your little mirror. You're a little flower. And I drank you. I turned my face to yours until I thought my neck would break in half. So when you looked down into the ocean and found another wave, I was broken. I was lost. Without you I knew I would freeze. I knew that I would lose the life that you had given me. With you I had a chance to grow. I had a chance to stand up. To be something more than another useless thing. And so I boiled without you. I made a plan to end your other love affair. She could not have the sentences that you wrote into me. I would not let them be spoken into her ears. Your words are now a part of my spine and my ribs and all the bones that make me who I am. I would not let you speak them to such a useless thing. So I made it so that she was truly useless. I fixed her so that she would vanish fast. And I knew that her absence would lead you back to me. And everyday all day I saw you do your work, but you never turned your eye to me again. So I stripped myself and I stopped eating. I stretched myself across the rock that was high up out of the ocean. And without the constant contact of the world of waves, I dried up and turned into a stain. I was nothing but a fragile shape smeared black across the face of the rock. From different views and different angles, you could see my silhouette. Some thought I looked like lightning. Others commented that I might be the cane of an older woman. But I knew what I was. I was a flower. Your flower. I was a green stalk and a bright brown eye and a Corona of yellow petals. Just as when I was happy, I break my neck all day because I can't take my eyes off of you. You are the only star in the sky and once upon a time you spoke to me. You spoke only to me.
Clyppe
If I told you how he tricked me into marrying him, you would not believe me. You would call me a liar, but I'm not. He used an apple. And somehow from the apple he convinced me that I was pregnant. And then he convinced me that I should be his wife. My family wanted nothing to do with him. When my father learned of this man's plans for me, my father wanted me to marry someone else. He told me that this man was no good, and I was fearful at the time that he was absolutely right. My father worked with a young man who was only a few years younger than I. He had been sold on me by my father because he loved my father more than he probably would ever love me. I wasn't sure if this would be a problem. After all, my father was a powerful influence in my life and to be married to a man who worshiped him would probably mean my father might let me breathe a little. But I knew if I married the apple man, my father would be a blight. He would do all he could to tear us from each other. I tried to tell him that I was pregnant. My father said women get pregnant every day. He told me this should not be the grounds for marriage. But the apple man was wily. He understood the minds of many different types of people. And he certainly understood mine. One day when I was at the store, he took an apple and he sliced it in half. Inside the apple he used a hot knife to write two words. “Our child.” He mended the apple and sealed it back up. When I came home he sat me down and challenged me. He said, "What is inside this apple is inside of you. And when you cut this apple in half, you will see what I am saying is true. If you can eat the apple even with what's inside, I will leave you alone forever." Of course when I cut into the apple and saw the message, I understood what he was saying. I married him that night in a rush at the temple. All these years later after both my parents have died, I am watching my son playing with my daughters. There are four apples running around our backyard. This trickster of mine found many ways into my womb, and I grew our family for years. Even though I can hear the voice of my father calling this man every name I've ever heard him call the termites in the wood of our basement, I can also hear my son's voice in his. My parents opted out of being grandparents. They died before they died as far as we were concerned. But they have no choice but to live on in the lives of this “bastard's” children. I am a mother. And I am a wife. And I am not afraid to be either.
Daphne
This is better. This stillness. The hardness of my skin. My rigid limbs. This is better than what was before. You chased me. You were an arrow. I could never be as fast as you. You were a thousand arrows. You were terror. You were the monster that plagued me as a girl. I remember the way it felt to be more afraid with my eyes closed than opened. And I remember how it felt to be afraid either way. That was a fear that ripped into my dreams and sat me up in bed and spoke to me like I was no longer a child. That was a voice that took me from my childhood. It was like someone left the window open and every day winter came rushing in and I could not unfreeze myself. The fear was a cocoon. And I slept in it for so many years until the beast was gone. You're a thousand arrows. You killed the beast. Then without warning you became the beast, but there was no one to kill you. And so I ran and ran. And I begged god to let me be anyone but me because it was me that you wanted. And if I was not me, maybe you would leave me alone. And so I wanted to be someone else. You are not the first archer, and I knew you would not be the last. Everyday I glow like a candle in a black room. And every face wants to feel me warm against their skin. They believe that because I am a flame I have no choice but to burn for them. And so now I am asking the river to change me. Make me not a flame but something harder. Take away all my loveliness and replace it with something immune. It has become death to be me and so make me not me. Protect me from every beast that would point an arrow at me. Make me hard. I don't want to move. And as I stretch my arms up to the sky I can become shelter to anyone who is afraid of the sun or the rain or the dark.
Halcyon
He came to me wet. Drowned. Blue. The life choked from him. And he stood over me and dripped into our marriage bed. He could not speak. There was no air inside of him. And when he opened his mouth it was like a bucket that has been overfilled. And what was inside of him now was the sea. I dreamed that I was awake when all of this happened, but of course I was asleep. When I woke up I knew that he was gone. Something had come to me to tell me the truth about him. I rushed from the house and ran to the shore because we lived close to the water. And I flew over the rocks, running so quickly, and I got as far as I could without joining him. Where was his body? Where was the wreckage? His life had been the seal. The ocean stretched before me like the shadow of a planet that had come too close. I could not say his name. I tried to open my mouth and the wind knocked me backwards, away from him. What had we done? What had he done? Why had he been destroyed this way? Punished for what? His bones and flesh would disintegrate deep below the rough waves of the sea. My dream about him coming to me was the last I would ever see of him. I wanted the storm to rip my body to pieces. And then as if some god had taken pity, the winds disappeared. The sky lightened. The universe was calm and comforting. And I cried into the air that was now so still. I imagined that I had words to speak. I wanted to be a song that could float into the air. My words would fly like the kingfisher, soaring high until the air that would not molest it. I would find a place in the middle of the quiet and I would lay eggs like perfect pebbles of love. My love would sit inside the nest that he and I had built, and I would give birth to his memory and his future. And anytime we were lost in the middle of a winter storm, we would find the quiet days and we would raise a family. A family that was never meant to be.
Hero
One of the things about being a virgin is that you desperately would like to not be one. You want to find that careful balance between staying true to your parents and true to yourself and also being devoured by someone who desires you and loves you. To be honest, he doesn't need to love me. Now I have to live in a tower of sorts. My parents want to protect me from the things that others desire. But what doesn't get discussed very often is how much I desire. You see I sit up here and lean against the window and look out into the country where we own so much, and all I want to own is a kiss. 100 kisses. 10 fingers. A warm wet stiff tongue. And my neck covered in nibbles. It's a silly dream I have but it certainly is worn out with overuse. I would say this fantasy of mine is my oldest and my closest friend. Now somewhere in the pastures and the alleys and the tiny homes of the people who live here, there is a little gold dot. And he knows I'm here. He knows just how white the walls of this tower are. And he knows how to toss things very high. He ties his messages to rocks that he throws up to my window. I keep my window open. I've kept it open ever since I saw him with the rocks in his hand. Because I wanted his words inside of me. I wanted to read the messages that he had for me. The messages always have the same theme. "How will you ever become a woman if no one ever lets you be a woman?" I had to admit that this was an impossible question to answer while staying chaste and true and clean. I kept the rocks and piled them up hidden in my closet. One time he sent a rock up that told me my parents kept quick courage in the bottles under the sink. And so I tiptoed to the kitchen and I filled a glass and then two, and I could feel that what he said was right. When my family had fallen asleep that night, I left the front door and found my way down to the river where he had told me to meet him. Once I was at the river, I knew that we would swim together and keep our clothing dry. It was in the water that he held me and he asked me another one of his questions: "do you use your mouth to eat? Do you use your legs to walk? And yet you have body parts that you don't use it all. Let me show you how to use them. God gave you those body parts for a reason." He did not need to seduce me with his words, but I was grateful that he knew how. And that night with all the liquor inside of me, I found out the difference between being chaste and ecstasy. My lover lived on the other side of the river. He was a good swimmer. At night I would light a candle in my window when I knew my parents were fast asleep. No matter how hard it was to swim across the river, his body was always ready for me. And over and over again I lost my virginity to this young man who used different words each night to open my eyes and my legs and to teach me how to be a woman.
If, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember?)
To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!
If, when the wintry tempest roared,
He sped to Hero, nothing loath,
And thus of old thy current poured,
Fair Venus! How I pity both!
For me, degenerate modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I’ve done a feat today.
But since he crossed the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,
To woo—and—Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;
‘Twere hard to say who fared the best:
Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you!
He lost his labour, I my jest;
For he was drowned, and I’ve the ague. - Lord Byron
Psyche
He came to tear me away from love but he fell inside of me instead. He dropped down inside of me and landed at the soles of my feet where he was trapped. He was a prisoner inside of my body. And when he emerged, he was in love with me. Now his mother was angry because I was the younger version of her. And no matter how much power she might have, there was nothing she could do to twist the hands of the clock backwards. I had years of beauty ahead of me and most of hers were behind. And even though she was considered the most beautiful, it was obvious that the eyes were now divided. If they saw her they always took the time to look at me. So she sent her son to destroy me. And instead he destroyed himself. He fell in love. What I didn't know was that this man had damaged me for the spite of his mother. I went from being the most desirable of all the living and breathing single women to being someone who was scorned. Ignored. I was looked over. I was considered bruised and overripe. While my sister's all found suitors and husbands and had children, I was left to hide in the library. I went for long walks and fed the small birds. The only suitor for me was the lake in the park near my home. As I traveled all over the small village where we lived, I sensed a shadow following me. And that's when he showed up again, the son of my enemy. Remember he had lived inside of me for only a few moments but it was enough. He told me he could not live without me for another moment. And so we were married in secret. We lived our lives as husband and wife in the dark of night because in the day he was a slave to his mother. She was a powerful figure in this village, and she was one that everyone feared. And even though he had defied his mother, he was a sweet tongued man. He could keep her at bay as long as she did not know who the woman was that he locked up in the mansion that his mother gave him when he turned 18. My sister's came to visit me and they were concerned. The fear that they projected into our conversation was the fear that any man who could lie to his mother could also lie to his wife. Was he lying to me? What was he really doing with his days? Why was it so important that I stay locked up and far away from the events and the stories of the village? I did not want to listen to them because I knew that my husband had spent time inside of me, and we were connected forever. But their fears were reasonable enough that I knew I would speak to him. And in the evening when we were spent and resting our heads on the same pillow, I whispered to him, "What do you do with your days my love? What is the work that you do for your mother?" My sister's had described the animals who betrayed their wives and the answers that they would give. Too often they would try to brush off their brides by explaining that what they did was unexplainable. It was too difficult for their lives to understand. But my husband turned to me with his glowing blue eyes and he said in the softest voice, "I keep her from killing you." And then he turned his head and was asleep within minutes. I wrapped my arms around him like he was a magical elixir, and I drank him and I fell asleep, too.
