Narcissus Toppled

it was a cruel deception of us both, but of you especially. "what would i do without you?" "you know me so well." but i didn't, or, at least, i didn't care. what i was in love with, if you can call it that, was how you, too, were fully enthralled by the Legend of Me. you could rattle off lists of my likes and dislikes quicker than i could. all the cities and towns where my nomadic family had once lived. petty hopes and cynical dreams, the nightmares from which i would awake screaming. all of these things you collected like bits of broken shells from the shore, and you would bring them out like trophies, as though they established possession.

maybe that would have been enough, and we could have continued that way, happily, both of us basking in the glow of Me. but then i met someone, and i became enthralled by his legend, and suddenly, i was not enough.