by Leonie Jacobs

Content Warnings: Themes of Bodily Violation, Lack of Consent, Violent Imagery

They named me Psyche, but the name lies. There is no soul when one wears the face of Lust.

I wear its face as well as its scent. Wet breath, salt, saliva.

A body built for worship.

As I walk along the shore I feel watched. Eyes tracing me. I turn, but nothing.

The gods forged me not with care, but cruelty. They carved a body curved, molded a face so cruelly captivating that my captor’s mother crawled to bow and arrow. A face to sink ships. A face to tempt even the Gods. They did not bless. They drowned.

Your mother, behind me. Crawling, dress dragging through wet sand, arrow between her teeth. Her mouth, full of salt. Her hands, bloodless, trembling with rage. I watch her rise. Bow and arrow pressed to her chest. Her eyes, bloodshot. The arrow’s head pierces my skin and then digs itself between my ribs. Somewhere my soul ruptures. It crashes against the walls of my stomach, curls down my throat.

I can’t breathe.

You tell me to breathe.

You are just a son. Your mother’s greatest creation. While I am her thieving damnation. The siren’s tide. No sailor can resist. No mother can.

When you cup my face, she holds my marble heart, squelches it.

She crushes it like it matters—a cup full of blood, chewing sacramental bread, Holy Communion at the bottom of the sea.

I baptize thee.

My neck is caught in the noose of her hair. You drink from the cup. You never ask if it’s okay.

Blood and brine. Crimson saliva tying your lips to mine.

You are a demon, a thief, a liar.

My heart, my prize.

I am a look, a bite. Live in your heart, etch my name in your thigh. Oil on your shoulder. Your scent in my ear.

My name is Psyche.
Where I am is near.

I caught you. I know what you look like. You’re angry. You thought it didn’t matter. But it always mattered what I looked like.

You don’t look like the monster I took you for.

Amor.

Leonie Jacobs (she/her) is a 23-year old writer from the East of Germany. When she is not at university or at work she likes to dabble in different literary genres. Her writing has appeared in iamb as well as Troublemaker Firestarter.