Free Psyche in a Dress by Francesca Lia Block

Psyche
    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