An Open Letter To The Narcissist’s Supply

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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