'The Narcissist': A Poem by Ashley

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I dazzle, I daze, I drug my projects,

Make them sink in my saliva so I can float. 

Truth or dare? Always dare. Challenges and challengers

Always matter, for they can make me dream

That my eyes are actually dice, giving

Me the aim to hurl them at my potential crushes, I mean crushers.

 

I don’t aim high because I’ve made myself the highest.

How? Easy! I teach those lower than me to stare

With downcast eyes, at me, and if they don’t comply, I’ll

Threaten to sink them beneath their blind spots. Threatened,

They’ll beg for mercy, damning me with customised hymns.

‘If you dare hurt me again, you’ll be damned,’ I terrorise in a sugary tone.

 

No one dares protest because everyone knows I can

Hit my aim right on the blind spot. I’ve cast a

Successful spell, for my followers think they love

 Me, though I fear they actually fear me, knowing I’ll shove their heads

In a sink. Then, using a bar of soap and a toilet brush, I’ll

Cleanse their eyes and mouths, so that they’re always my squashed pets.

 

Eyes cleansed? No. They’re infested with blind spots, my objects’ eyes. I

Dare not set them free, my properties, or they’ll turn against me,

Sink my self-esteem down the drain of misery and

Aim to make me the most hated person on earth. Hateful.

I can’t bear those things, so I let those little animals bear with me,

For that’s the only way my dignity will survive--

 

Forever? Not quite. Come to think of it.

Eyes that are not ice, are not dice. They’re alive,

I am living. Others are not wheels customised for my twisted need—I

Dare say—to twist, roll and victimise like squashed paper dice.

‘Aim to win every heart by force and you’ll

Sink your loved ones out of sight,’ a daring person finally dares tell me,

 

And he is right. I promise not to let my wounded ego sink

Partly for myself and partly for

Those who care daringly, truly and riskily. ‘Sorry, really,’ I say and aim

To love myself, unconditionally. Tears well up in my eyes,

Which are now soft,, no longer hard as icy dice. I dare

Myself to stop having those nightmares in which I shriek, ‘I, I, I!’

Aye aye!

 

 

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