N is for… Narcissist

By Vita Forest

I will walk around and cast my gaze on you as if you were an object.  A vase.  A tacky souvenir I did not mean to buy.

I will criticize

• Your post-baby body.
• Your too-short hair.
• Your tired, blotchy skin.

I can’t help it – you disgust me.

I will complain about

• your parents,
• your siblings,
• your friends,
• your colleagues.

Idiots all.

No wonder you like them.

I will call you a failure because you don’t measure up to my ideas of

• what you should be,
• what you should look like,
• what you should be doing,
• what you should like.

I will call you a failure and you will half laugh.  And not quite believe it – not think that I could be that cruel.

I can.

I will toy with you like a cat with a cockroach.  I will show my enthusiasm for your idea, then watch you chase your tail in circles, before I crush it.  You will look at me confused, but didn’t you want to?

No, I did not.

I will make you doubt your own thoughts.  I will make you think you are going crazy.  I will make you go crazy.  I will make you hear my voice in your head so you don’t even try to do anything that I would not like.  And yet sometimes you will anyway.  Do something that I do not like.  It’s just what you do.

Because you are an idiot who is going crazy.

I will make you feel worthless.  I will make you feel sad.  I will tug at your puppet strings just to feel the control, just to make you bleat, just for the heck of it.

Just because I can.

I will never be happy.  I will never be content.  No matter what you do.  No matter how you change for me.  No matter how hard you try.  It will never be enough.  Everything is your fault.  You are a failure and everything is your fault.

I will look at you from the outside.  I will judge.  I will find you wanting.  I will let you know this.  But you won’t talk to anybody about it.

You are too ashamed.

I will watch you dissolve.  I will watch you shrink.  I will make you take up less and less room, make you stand on one foot, make you hold your breath.

I will suck you dry.