The Day Your Mirror Fell

I wrote this after 3 years of drinking the most delicious poison I’ve ever tasted. Life with a covert narcissist has showed me things I don’t wish for anyone to see or feel. I lost friendships, my creative side, my self worth, identity, and self esteem in these years, and am getting back into poetry. This is just prose, but it felt really, really good to write it.

Gold isn’t formed for applause
Masks aren’t beautiful
And lies are just pleas
Rage from an empty soul

Love isn’t control
And trust isn’t born from manipulation
You spit in my face to make your art
Your vile favor, “I hope she’s crying”

A poisoned chalice
From a honey-voiced narcissus
Starving for dreadful favoritism
Stepping on me so they can hold your heart

Leaving their toothbrush or ring in your bathroom
To claim the space
My arrival deferred
So she can leave first
A never-ending ride on your carousel of convenience

Your pestilential forgiveness
For the way I saw through you
You twisted truth into my apologies
For groundless admiration

You lie like others blink—
Instinctual, automatic
A pernicious chameleon
Spreading your malady

A disgustingly hollow shell
Desperate for worship
A glass bowl:
Everything you told me I was, is you

When you hurt me, it was because I was too sensitive
When you cheated truth, it was because I was too suspicious
Every time you lied—well, I must have misunderstood

But you’re vindicated, since I’m the one who was “just too misunderstood”
You paint your ugly all over my body
Let it seep in on all sides
Every curve and crevice
For your covetous profit

So you can float on
Reaching out when you’re bored
Contaminating one after another
On that rotten carousel

And oh, how you can gather an audience
You lower your voice
Paint yourself tragic and misunderstood
A hero burdened by difficult women who just can’t see how hard you try

You turn your knives into sympathy cards
You’re a monster
A facade in Saint’s robes
But monsters like you cannot stand daylight
And I am not your audience anymore

You flicker under scrutiny
Your reflection warps when no one is clapping
Sporting cloak-and-dagger
A smokescreen lurker

A lesson learned:
The quietest monsters are the ones
Who need you to believe
You are the beast.