Echo No More: Aria

The Forgotten Nymph’s Return to Power

Echo was a nymph cursed to repeat only what others said. When she loved Narcissus, she lost even more of herself—until only a whisper remained.

But this isn’t where her story ends. She rose from silence and became Aria: a voice of her own. For anyone who’s lost themselves in loving a narcissist, this is your return.

I. Before the Silence

Before the boy with the mirror eyes,

she danced.

Through pine and stone,

she spun wild syllables into birdsong,

told stories to the wind

and laughed with her sisters

so loud the cliffs would blush.

She wasn’t just pretty.

She was the voice.

The presence.

Wit sharpened on mountaintops,

a mind like rushing water.

II. The Curse

Then came the curse of Hera

when she covered for Zeus—

a goddess’s jealousy

over a man’s infidelity.

And silence fell like ash.

Now, she could only repeat

the last few words.

No more weaving stories—

just scraps of others’ sounds

folded back to them,

never her own.

III. The Boy and the Mirror

And then he came—

all marble skin and cold fire,

Narcissus,

the boy who mistook reflection for love.

She followed, aching,

not for his beauty,

but for recognition.

To be seen.

To be heard.

“Who’s there?”

“There.”

“I love you.”

“You.”

He recoiled,

as if her echoing were a flaw.

As if her love were a stain.

And she eventually left him

to drown in himself.

The myth says she vanished.

So let’s rewrite that.

IV. A Warning

But let this be a warning.

To love a narcissist

is to pour your soul into a well

that never fills—

to become a whisper

in someone else’s world.

You will shrink.

You will vanish.

Until you forget

the sound of your own name.

But you are not lost.

Echo was not lost.

V. Her Becoming

She grew.

She learned to echo herself.

In caves and cliffs and ancient forests,

she whispered back her name

until it filled the sky.

Until her voice became a song,

a force of wind and thunder,

a haunting that would never beg again.

She is not gone.

She is the voice you hear

when you finally stop chasing people

who cannot love you.

She is every woman

who reclaims her voice

after giving it away—

and sings herself back into being.

VI. Aria

And when she spoke again,

not in fragments

but in full,

she chose a new name:

Aria.

No longer a hollow return

of someone else’s sound—

she is a voice carved from silence,

a song that rises

without needing permission.

She is not an echo anymore.

She is Aria—

the music she was meant to be

all along.