To Psyche, there was nothing worse than the eyes of people on the street. To her they felt like lasers on her skin. She felt like she was subjected to them no matter where she was or what she was doing. They were menacing, greedy, and everything else she hated. Anywhere without them she considered herself free, but the only time she could find was at night. It was then that she would make her great escape. She would find the top of the nearest hill, and when she arrived she would sit on a log and blindfold herself. If she could appreciate beauty without her eyes, then they were wrong for looking. As she sat she felt the whips of the wind on her bare arms, and smelled the sweet subtlety of the nectar that blew from the hill across from hers. The wind even sounded like an angel’s song in her ears. Her mind ran free under the stars she couldn’t see, she felt the fluffy grass on her feet and dry logs on her hands. In spite of her feeling of freedom, there were still eyes on her.
A man with eyes like soft spotlights flew through the bottom layers of clouds. The mind behind his eyes knew of Psyche’s woes, her subjection and the eyes keeping her in checkmate, and he spent every night dreaming of sweeping the top of the hill and flying away with her, away to the heavenly place she deserved to be. His spotlights followed Psyche anywhere she went, and when she made her escape one night, he made his choice and dove toward her.
As his hands made contact with her, one arm sliding under hers and the other wrapping her waist, he effortlessly lifted her away into the sky. Her disorientation was apparent in the way she gasped, and for a moment he nearly faltered, coming within a single twitch of dropping her.
Psyche, held by gentle arms in a way she’d only ever imagined of, thought of fighting. She thought of kicking and scratching, biting, and writhing in her thief’s arms as they flew, but she was smart enough to know better, seeing as she had no clue how far the ground was.
When they touched down, she hit the grass with an unexpected thud. Psyche heard her kidnapper’s wings flutter away, and due to her lack of orientation she had no option but to stay where she was. She could smell a sickeningly sweet haze in the air that made her slowly more compliant to her predicament as the minutes passed.
In the following days, a terrifying spiral of acceptance would occur for Psyche. The winged man brought her everything: That first night, she’d been brought to a soft, lavish bed, and the next day she’d been treated to meals more appetising than she’d ever tasted. The two bonded over philosophy, love and all the concepts one might only bring up after many years of knowing someone. The cycle of wonderful treatment continued for what began to feel like years.
Psyche’s blindfold stayed on, no matter how long she was there. He didn’t want to be seen, she didn’t want to see him. “Love is blind” he told her. “you need not see me to love me.”
But the more he stressed it, the more she questioned it. At first she was curious. As she sat on the patio she would mutter questions to herself.
“Why would he not want me to look if he looks at me?” she whispered.
As the days bled to weeks and weeks to months she did her best to keep her questions as curiosity, but after long, her ‘curiosity’ found its way into her dreams and her anxieties truly developed. They quickly became acute, clouding her thoughts with doubt about her partner, until a single line sent her anxiety to panic.
“Where is your name from? It’s so pretty...” He invited her to answer over dinner.
It was only a slip up, but it set a landslide in motion.
From that line came Psyche’s realisation that she didn’t know his name, and It felt like a heavy spear to the chest. Each broken rib was another unanswered question, every ounce of blood lost was another guilty concern she noticed she had. Psyche excused herself from the table as politely as manageable, answering the question as she stood.
“I would love to tell you, but truthfully I’m not sure. I’m very tired though, and really must get to bed. have a wonderful night darling.”
She left him with a peck on the cheek and strode off to her room, only to collapse in tears upon closing the door. She buried her head as far into her pillow as physics would allow, dragging it off the bed and onto the floor.
“Who is he?” She sobbed, over and over.
Psyche sat awake for hours, late into the night after her crying ceased, and all her thoughts kept tugging her toward her lover, who was asleep in his room. She’d felt enough. She needed to see him. She took a candlestick and lit it on a lantern just outside her door, and from there she felt her way around the house to his room. The door creaked open, but he didn’t stir. Slowly she lifted her blindfold for the first time in aeons, stepped forward and crouched down slowly, holding her candle to the bottom left of her face. It took her mind a moment to register, but inches from her own she saw the face of Cupid.
She felt her own eyes snap into lasers and felt so shocked that she violently jolted back, spilling candle wax onto his gorgeous face. He woke in an instant, quickly throwing his ivory wings up and down, forcefully sweeping himself out of bed and extinguishing the candle in the same movement. His face, lit by the moonlight, was muddled in a shocked, panicked, and especially betrayed manner. He desperately grabbed for the window above his bed, thrust it open, and dove out without another word, leaving Psyche sitting alone on the floor, in dead silence, under the spotlight of the moon.
Words inspired by His True Face (2022) by May Moe. A watercolour and acrylic painting based on the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche. View the full collection and artist's statement here.
