You desired me as a cure for an incurable disease.
You wanted my laughter to devour your silences.
You wanted my plans to line the walls of your emptiness.
You wanted my certainties to quiet your doubts.
But when I was neither cure nor source of laughter,
and neither planned nor struck true,
you called me a pitiful boredom.
Thus I was marked,
skin seared by the cold iron of lying loves,
and, in the desperation of madness, I forged the theory of parasitic loves,
and I gave it your name,
your name, your shape,
your slightly sad thoughts.
The theory states that parasites are loves
that live off another’s love.
That kill, cruelly, even the image of God.
That feed, and leave, and sometimes starve,
and beg for another victim.
And you, who in theory loved me,
vomited when I needed love.
Then, you grew tired.
And still, in the deep foolishness of the parasitized,
I beg you, in dreams, in sobs and prayers, to stay.
And still I blame myself for not having fed you enough.
For not having been many. For not having been another,
or another, or another, or another.
And perhaps that is my illness.
Or just another Tuesday
when I dreamed again
of my favorite parasite.
– Painting: Cats Nightmare, circa 1890. Illustration by Louis Wain.