Love is not isolation. Love is not hidden. You deserve warmth and acceptance and love out loud between two equals- two teammates. The narcissist is incapable of offering you what you deserve. But he makes you believe he's given you the whole world and lassoed the moon and sacrificed everything and breathed air into your lungs and pumped burning red blood into your veins. Shouldn't you feel indebted? What do you really have to show for it all? Show me. You can't show what's been taken away. He is the thief of time and energy and women's potential and you have so much to offer the world that he doesn't deserve and will never appreciate. Still you believe it is the greatest love ever written, because television tells you it is dripping with the salacious sweat of secret desire and you feel like you've won the game that is the female experience. Being picked is better than not, you tell yourself. Daily. But where is this love written? Not a word from his mouth or his pen. Confusing though because he acts as if you should feel lucky to be in the presence of such an ego. And you happily believe everything he spouts like gospel and blindly follow where ever he goes like a disciple. I want you to know the suspicions that roll around your mind- like a migraine as you push them back and they spin forward and you push back... forward- are there for a reason and never because you are crazy. You are not crazy. Repeat it. Daily. Who does he compare you to when he makes his snide comments or backhanded compliments? The past is never just the past. Who else did he consider when he caught them alone in his lair? Ask your friend. You were weaved into his design. from the moment he had you alone but he had her on another thread in the city and there was another strand from the mountains and another string in his hometown and I was weaved in too. I cut myself out but he needed to stitch me back in. So now he has you dangling over our tangled fibers that still remain. He keeps a list of women he felt entitled to like a recipe to stir up the perfect concoction of illusions of grandeur. Neat. Until that pesky list began to talk and he could no longer pretend that the names are just names- inatimate to him. The names are not names. The names are human women with minds that were melded and hearts that were humiliated with bodies that kept the score. With lips and mouths that articulate all the vile things he's done. The stories- our stories- the human women on the list- all different,and simultaneously, strangely similar. Follow his pattern. He paints a picture of us with scarlet red and scandalous black and him whining in the background- baby blue. Always the victim. in search of his one and only. You. The one. Two words from him and you could feel all of your troubles melt away- groomed for happily ever after after one perfect date. Before you, the wrong ones. Always in the wrong. But he never told you how he forced them all like squares into a circle. He molded with his hands into what he desired but he couldn't sculpt so he cursed the clay. But we are not statues or paintings or objects we are women with stories. Listen to the stories- If not mine, follow the other threads. Take your pick. Follow his pattern. Listen. You cover your ears every day in order to keep in line with his ideal self-denying dream girl. but I know you can hear them. What has happened to them? They've all had the audacity to speak- to commit the unspoken 8th deadly sin- Why did they challenge a man? Your man. But he isn't yours. He belongs to no one and everyone. Anyone who pays him attention feeds him. Supply. It's what I was and involuntarily still am and she was and is and they all were and are and you are. We are. Him and his neat little box had never been disrupted. How dare we ruin his perfect score perfect square perfect system first date. Every time. Every. Time. No. Exceptions. In his world only a lesser woman fails to grant him what he's owed. His design. His right. His pattern. Those who deviate tend to regret it. But I don't regret it. That's why I'm the villian. That's why you think I'm your enemy like all the others. But the questions haunt you: Why? What? Who else? They will never go away because you're smart and strong and your body too keeps the score. We all eventually learned what was too earth-shattering, soul-pulverizing, heart-demolishing to believe. We learned it by accident Because we were weaved into the same timeline. He'll never let you know and it's all more than you'd like to know. But it's there deep deep down buried where he can't trace the rumbling suspicion or make you feel crazy again. If he wanted us all without a trace he should have worked smarter. When you fabricate your own logic it is doomed to be ridden with holes. There is strength in numbers and the list of names with minds and lips and pens are mightier than any design he's ever dreamt up and more valuable than all the money he's spent in the name of silence and control. And I'm gone. And I'm distanced and safe. And able to heal and love. But all I can think about is that it costs him nothing to silence and control you. You are meant to be more than a thread in his design an ingredient in his formula a sculpture in his gallery a name on his list. Prepare yourself for the discard. I will not mince my words here; it is going to feel like he's stolen the short breath from your lungs and the boiling blood from your veins and left you for dead- but know that it will be the most valuable gift he's ever given you. Take the scissors and free yourself from his fibers. Fly. far. Face forward with him behind you forever. There is a safe space among the women and the echoes of our stories. When you are ready- whenever- you will be welcomed warmly.
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I enjoyed this piece as a whole but the following really stuck out to me, in a good way! Very well written:
“He molded
with his hands
into what he desired
but he couldn’t
sculpt
so he cursed the clay.”
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Thank you so much for reading ❤
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