Psyche in a Dress
Authors: Francesca Lia Block
Psyche in a Dress
For Joanna
I
am not a goddess
I am my father’s
My father had me mutilated twice
He had my mother and sisters murdered more than once
but he has never killed me off
sometimes I think he only gave me life
so I could be his muse, his actress
They say he does things with me
to work through issues he had with my mother
I look just like her in the early films but
now she is gone
In the first film I had to take off my top
I stood there, shivering
with my hands covering my breasts
as the cameras were rolling
A million caterpillars crawled over my bones
and my stomach was filled with the wings of dying moths
But I knew what I had to do
I am an actress
I am my father’s
I do my job
It was easier after that
I got used to all the crew watching
My father watching
People said that I was odd-looking
not the typical face you see
but my father tells me I am perfect, just what he wants
My father says
“These actors, they try to do too much
You know how to just be
Don’t try to do anything else
You are an actress
My princess”
I live with my father
in a dirty-white mansion
made of the bones and teeth of actors
It has been the scene of many atrocities
in my father’s films
There are crumbling columns in front
and a dining room we never use
with a giant chandelier from which
one of my father’s characters hung herself
There is a huge tiled pool
surrounded by crumbling, headless, limbless statues
ficus trees entwined with morning glories
beds of calla lilies
and oleander bushes
I can see the pool from my window
empty
my father rarely fills it with water
It was used for a drowning in another film
I have a large room
with a large bed draped in diaphanous fabrics
I have my own bathroom with a sunken tub and a view
through glass walls
of my private, somewhat overgrown rose garden
peeling white iron chairs and mossy fountains
I have a walk-in closet of my mother’s designer clothes
In one interview I read
my mother said that she sold her soul for that wardrobe
A black satin-trimmed smoking jacket and trousers
a white satin-trimmed smoking jacket and matching satin
skirt, a golden pleated chiffon Grecian gown, a golden
sweater covered with gemstones, a white silk wrap
dress covered with giant red peonies, a pink suit with a
short jacket and skirt, shift dresses in white, black, red
sapphire, emerald and tangerine silk or satin, some
with large bows in back, piles of cashmere sweaters in
lipstick colors, some with silk flowers from obis
appliquéd on them, and many, many shoes
When my mother left us, she took only a black suit
a pair of jeans, a red silk blouse
her jewels and five pairs of the shoes
Sometimes I lie awake at night
wondering how she chose them
I knew which ones they were
because I knew her wardrobe better than she did:
black leather riding boots
black lizard pumps
strappy golden sandals
ruby red flats
emerald green satin dancing shoes with ankle straps
I was so jealous of those shoes
Sometimes I put on one of the dresses
light candles
and dance with my mother’s shadow
Most of the time, at night, I use only candles in my room
waiting for her to come back
Even a wraith is better than nothing
even a silhouette on the wall
My father’s new girlfriend, Aphrodite
wanted to be the star of his film
and he wouldn’t replace me
Once I heard him saying to her, “She’s seventeen!
She’s seventeen!
What do you expect?”
Enraging her even more
They screamed at each other all night
Until the chandelier shattered
And a thousand swallows flew through the open window
whirring their wings
In the morning she was gone
but she was not finished
One night I was lying in my bed
wearing an antique cotton nightgown
white as a bride
My father was out drinking with his producer
It was completely dark
Not even the candles were lit
I could have been abandoned
on a mountaintop—
the wind in my chest
was that cold
That was when you came
Through the open window
with the night-blooming jasmine
that grows up the old stone garden wall
You knelt beside my bed and put your head near mine
You whispered, “I just want to lie beside you tonight
I won’t hurt you”
I was afraid at first
Lay very still, waiting for pain
It felt like a scene from one of my father’s movies
The killer with the beautiful voice
For a moment I wondered
if my father had staged the whole thing
If he had a camera somewhere?
I wouldn’t put it past him
You only talked to me
You said, “Tell me”
You asked, “Do you think Love and Soul are the same?
If not, how does the Soul earn Love?
How does Love find his Soul?
Can one exist without the other?
If Love and the Soul had a child
what would her name be?”
“Tell me your name,” I said
“You already know
If you are Soul
I am the other one”
I heard the sea in your voice—
sheer waves breaking on pale powdered sand
I heard the glossy rustlings of the cypress and olive trees—
the footsteps of maenads and panpipes playing
echoing caves in the mountains—
cloven hooves striking the rock
At their approach birds took flight into the white skies
After a long time I fell asleep
In the morning you were gone
But you came
again and again
I asked to see you but you said
that was the one rule
I couldn’t put on
the light
Even so, I asked you to lie beside me
After a while I reached out
and held your hand
“I’m so crazy,” I said
“What’s wrong with me?
You come through my window at night
I haven’t seen your face
And I want you”
Even in darkness
your lips taste of sunshine
They leave a slight stinging spray on my lips
Your skin melts over me
I feel you enter like a shaft of light
My bones dissolve around you
We become liquid, eternal
I am released
from my mortality
You wiped my body with a cool towel
I told you what my father shot today
You said, “If you were my daughter
I would just sit you in front of a camera
and let it watch your face for hours, every expression”
“He cut off my mother’s head,” I said
“He made it keep talking
She had to have a mask made of her face
plaster and bandages
She is claustrophobic
and she said she almost died
breathing through those little straws”
You held me in your arms
and pressed your lips against my hair
After a long time you whispered
“The wild girls cut off Orpheus’s head
He shouldn’t have looked behind him
His music could have brought
Eurydice back from the dead”
“But he didn’t hear her footsteps,” I said
“You can’t doubt your gifts”
“Maybe he didn’t doubt himself
Maybe he doubted her, his love for her”
You were quiet, thinking
“My father doesn’t doubt,” I said
“What about you?”
I shook my head
Doubt tastes like sand in the mouth
“Philomela was raped
and her tongue cut out so she wouldn’t tell
She turned into a nightingale and sang
her story”
You told me all the myths, one after the other
night after night
my beautiful, brutal bedtime tales
As you spoke I closed my eyes and saw them come to life
the miniature figures acting out their parts
When we fell asleep
my dreams were more vivid than they had ever been
As if I were watching your dreams in my head—
The man who got to be a flower with a hundred petals
admiring himself in a pool forever
while the girl who loved him was only a voice
unable even to choose her words
The girl who crashed through the earth
in a chariot drawn by black steeds
punished for just one red pomegranate seed
unable to choose where she lived
a queen
only in darkness
a princess, her mother’s daughter
weaker
in the light
Love’s mother, the jealous one
who sent his beloved on a quest
carrying her heart in her hands
like a broken urn
Love the shining god with wings
Love the monster
“I love you,” I said
“Please let me
see you”
And you said, “You can’t doubt so much, Psyche”
But my half sisters were wearing black dresses
and big sunglasses
Their skin was tan
They came to visit me
I heard their heels click wickedly on the marble floor
“Tell us about this lover of yours”
“There isn’t anybody”
“Bullshit,” my oldest sister said
“Your skin never looked so good”
They wouldn’t stop asking
“I’ve never seen him,” I told them finally
“What?”
They were appalled
“He only comes at night”
“You’ve never seen his face?”
He smells like night-blooming flowers
Crushed, juicy petals on the pillows
His voice is full of ocean
Humming like the surf
He kneels before me like I am his goddess
He is a god
They laughed at me
Then their faces turned
grave
“You must make him show himself,” they said
“He may be a monster”
Why did I listen to them?
They have long white-blonde hair
large breasts
and brown skin
like their mother
I have my mother’s black hair, blue eyes and pale skin
full features and large hands like my father
My breasts are small with large aureoles
my legs long and too thin
I know there is something odd
in the way my knees touch and my neck strains
I am not sure why you chose me
Maybe you are a monster?
One night you came to me
I hid in the shadows and waited
I saw a dark figure go to the bed
feel around for the shape of my body
Your movements became more agitated
when you did not find me
You called my name
lay down on the sheets and searched for my scent
moved restlessly for a while like a baby or an animal
and then became
very still
I crept over to you and lit the candle I held
It was a tall taper that smelled of melting honey
In its light my lover was revealed
Is beauty monstrous?
If so, then my sisters were right
His beauty was so sharp it could have cut
out my heart
He lay naked, sleeping on my bed
How could it be?
Why had he chosen me?
I wanted to run and hide from him
As I stood, amazed, a drop of wax from the candle fell
and touched his bare shoulder
He cried out and leapt up
His face filled with pain
“I told you not to look at me,” he said
“My mother was right”
No girl wants to hear those words
He was so bright, a conflagration
And I
I had seen too much
I had seen the god
I was not
a goddess
I dropped to my knees and covered my eyes
“Don’t come back here,” I said
“Why do you doubt so much, Psyche?”
He reached to touch my shoulder but I pulled away
And then he was gone
My room has never been so empty
There is only one monster
Here
She is ready to do anything to be forgiven
She has been mutilated
(On film, but still)
Her mother has been murdered more than once
Now the monster’s mother is just gone
What more must monster girl do to find the god again?