The Narcissist’s Child
In the blue-lit hush of her unchosen dawn,
the flash announced her birth to feeds unknown,
A nursery built of branded threads,
her earliest memory a staged milestone.He cast her name in sponsored light,
immortalized each stumble and each small mistake,
Her cries rehearsed behind a parent’s lens—every scraped knee a headline,
every smile retake.Approval not a comfort but a currency to earn,
Her innocence measured in metrics and parental concern,
A trophy shown to strangers on a glass parade,
While love became a hashtag, not a balm for being afraid.
She learned to wear his moods as her only skin,
Dressed for engagement, curated to beginThe ritual of posing,
of scripting laughter in the home,
Where childhood means performance,
and play is always on loan.Each bedtime story a campaign, not a dream,
Her secrets traded for the dopamine of being seen.No
fairy tales here—just wardrobe changes and retakes,
Each moment monitored, harvested for digital stakes.She drew herself in fragments,
lines erased before they start,
Blank eyes and borrowed mannerisms, a paper cut-out heart.
He whispered, “She’s perfect,” to the ring light’s eye,
Framed her silence as “resilience,” forced tears never dry.Her voice a muted echo,
drowned by captions and by script,
A daughter folded inward, her own soul tight-zipped.He claimed her strength,
but counted every flaw,
Her rebellion edited out, her scars pressed raw,
Not a day unfiltered, not a single truth allowed,
Just a brand-new version of herself to please the crowd.She
learned love was applause, and safety meant display,
Her name a trending hashtag, her dreams thrown away.
Years recorded, curated, forever public, never hers,
She performed every virtue, rehearsed the lines that blurThe edge between affection
and a parent’s hungry pride,
Every hug a photograph, every kindness
amplified.In the haunted dusk of her teenage room,
She scribbled faces with no features, just an endless loomOf approval and branding,
erasure so completeThat she stared at her own reflection and saw only retreat.
Her father called it legacy, a perfect digital child,
But all the world saw was a shadow,
perfectly styled.She was not a girl—just an echo of a need,
A mirror for the broken, a vessel for his greed.Yet somewhere past the screen’s harsh glow, a fracture starts to
spread—A silent vow behind her eyes,
a hunger left unfed.No hashtags left to anchor her, no story left to sell,
Just a truth that would have saved her, if anyone could tell.In the end,
the only face she owns is blank and drawn in haste,
The ghost of the girl she might have been,
Etched in data and disgrace.