Sitting at the water’s edge
I’m agonizing.
He’s mesmerizing
effortlessly floating at the top.
Peering deep into those eyes:
they’re hypnotizing.
I’m nearly drowning
trying hard to make these voices stop.
Is this love or is this jealousy?
a boundless joy with melancholy.
I lie to myself, say I’ll stay for a while,
to pass my bleakest hours basking in a stranger’s smile.
Trying hard to get ahead,
the game’s exhausting.
They keep us playing
long enough to learn things can get worse.
Existence is a fatal cut.
There’s no denying:
everyone’s dying.
No prizes go to those who finish first.
Is this love? such crushing agony.
My reflection showing what I'll never be.
I lie to myself, say I’ll stay for a while,
to pass my bleakest hours basking in a stranger’s smile.
I don’t recognize his all-too-familiar face
nor his unfamiliar smile,
but it’s the first time someone’s looked at me
and made me feel worthwhile.
I don’t need to hear he’ll love me,
(words don't carry any power).
But I mirror his smile to hide, how inside,
I've been wilting like a flower.
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Notes:
- Obsession, fandom and loneliness as the face of narcissism.
- A narcissist not as someone who loves himself, but someone who loathes himself so much that he creates a persona he wishes he were, but barely recognizes
- original Narcissus myth (Ovid): Narcissus sees his reflection for the first time in the water (not knowing at all that that was him)
