The Mortal Disguises of Love

Achilles became the greatest warrior of the Trojan War not because he was born so, but because he was dipped entirely into the Styx, save for his heel. No weapon could harm him unless it struck that one place, and that made him invincible. Yet it also revealed, to the whole world, the only way he could be defeated.

Achilles had withdrawn from the fighting but when Patroclus, part friend, part lover, was killed, he became grief-stricken and furious. The Trojans had not struck the heel that could kill his body, but the hidden place that could wound his soul beyond repair. This was different. So, when the news reached Achilles, he was inconsolable. According to Homer, he fell to the earth, cloaked himself in ash, and wept until his cries reached Thetis in the depths of the sea.

For without a soul, a man is only a shadow. Once his emotional armour was gone, the arrow from Paris slipped easily into its mark.

Lately I have felt like Achilles. Not invincible but stripped of my emotional armour. My divine dipping was not mythic but built from years of self-work, training, and experiences that had made most of me impervious to the petty blows of life. During the times of my illness, I’ve taken the trip to hell and kept the vouchers to remind myself I made it back. I never expected to heal.

So, when I broke through, I didn’t leave empty handed. I came back with gratitude and appreciation. That was when I became invincible.

Even so, the vortex of everyday burdens was quick to pull me under. I let myself down by forgetting all the strength I acquired, slowly, one after another.

Just like Achilles, the gods had not dipped me whole. They had left one place dry, one tender spot that would break me if struck in the centre. My heart.

The doubts I swallowed, the apologies I never received, the nights I told myself it was fine; these were the ways my heel was pierced.

Theron was the first to set the stage’s tone. He did not appear as the wild beast, but took a man's form who made me feel safe in the woods before I realised, he had been holding the knife all along. He appeared as healing, the one who came for my ‘rescue’ from a cycle of sorrow I couldn’t escape on my own. Disguised himself as the destined other who would see me and remain, his love became his weapon that made me feel chosen. Before I knew it, my worth was replaced with being forsaken. He knew how to speak my spell by nature, enchanting me to lower my guard and striking exactly where I thought I was safest. Theron was my healing, until he wasn’t.

The second act belonged to Icarus. He didn’t come as a destroyer or a saviour, he was just someone indifferent. He sought my warmth not because I had flown too close to the sun, but because he had, and the burn still lingered. In time, he hovered near my flame, crossing the threshold until he was too close to my depth, my emotional fire. He smiled as though it were a gift, soaking in the heat before drifting toward the dark beyond its reach. He captivated my brightness, making me believe it was ours, though it had only ever been mine to give, and he had nothing to offer. I bore part of the fault, projecting a version of him that he never truly belonged.

He was nothing like Theron, no storm or promises. Icarus was an erosion, not an explosion. The illusion of intimacy. I was there for the story; he was there for the scenery. Icarus didn’t crash, he drifted. To him, I was only ever a convenient partner. He fell, not from the sky but from the fragile height of my hope. In the end what I called breadcrumbs, he called devotion.

Orpheus didn’t stall to take his part. His arrival softened Icarus’ departure. I became his Eurydice; someone he saw worthy of descending into the dark for. Yet, Orpheus never turned to meet my eyes; he sang with flattery for the fantasy I helped him build. I mistook the lyrics for the man, the performance for presence. To be ‘loved’ by Orpheus was to be desired at distance; beautiful, tragic and unreachable. I became his muse for a poem that never touched the skin beneath the metaphor.

Then I heard a whisper in my ear. It was Hermes’ arrival. I’m not sure if I can even call that an arrival. He wasn’t someone that I fell for, he was the thought I had forgotten but somehow missed. With him, I was never allowed to settle. His intention was never to build permanence. As per his nature, Hermes delivered a message my soul needed to hear. Perhaps so much that I mistook parts of the dream as real. To meet someone in a place where words dissolve, a familiarity so sudden and ancient that, as the words vanished, memory took form. Hermes was the dream-bringer. Yet his was a world that I did not belong. His nights were brightened under another moon. He was the signal and the trickster. A figure half in shadow, half in light, leaving only the echo of his footsteps in places no map could find.

Hermes moved between realms, but he never lingered.

Eos’ was just a herald of beginnings that never stayed long enough to see the sunrise. I mistook his arrival for transformation, not knowing he was only the prologue, never the plot. He was a pause in disguise that belonged to no chapter. The kind that is soft enough to hope in, distant enough to never arrive. A beautiful and fleeting blush of light, gone before you can turn your face around.

The prophecy was never about them. It was about me remembering the time when I was invincible.

I named them after legends because each one felt like an epic devotion.

Life moves in patterns, each filled with different versions of the same disappointments. We can never breakthrough if we keep repeating the same actions.

I admit, I am a world-class master of self-deception. None of them were gods. Their intention was never to rescue. They were just passing mortals, but I called them signs from the heavens.

When their seasons ended, all I heard were oracles in their silence.