I am a parasite.
I live off what is around me
I need nothing from inside
What I do not need does not exist
So I have nothing inside

I laugh
I cry
I smile

Not because I have to,
Because it is right,
Human,
But because I am supposed to.
And I know this.

I am never unhappy.
I choose what to live off of
Why would I choose unhappiness?
People ask me if I am okay.
Of course I am okay
What other way is there?

I surround myself with perfection
So I can act as though it lives inside me too
When really, there is no beauty
No light.

But also no darkness
No flaming wounds
No shards of broken promises
Just the cold, logical ambition to which I cling.

I sympathize with everything
I empathize with nothing
I know but do not feel
With none but three exceptions:

People can make me laugh
Truly laugh
Not always. Sometimes it is mechanical
Though you could never tell
But people can truly make me laugh
Because they are that to which I aspire
They are like enough to me to accept me
But unlike enough that I can never predict them.

Books can make me cry
Truly cry
Like nothing else can
Moments written with the right words
In the right color
Are more powerful to read than to experience
It is nothing but this great magnitude of force
That can make me cry, the way I should.

Music can make me smile
Truly smile
Smile deep like the ocean
Music is a gift to me
To say that I am human
Even if I don’t feel like it
Even if I feel like a parasite
Music lets me feel the way everyone else feels all the time

So for me
Me, who knows her flaws,
To whom love is more of an opinion than an emotion
Who reflects hurtful words like an icy mirror
It is pure luck that what surrounds me
Books, music, and people
Is good enough to mask the pieces of me
That were never there.

I am a parasite.