A smile sharper than glass,
glimmering with shards of light that cuts,
the kind that beckons you close, only to let you bleed
in the name of love.

Words like mirrors,
reflecting back nothing but distortion,
twisting your truth into knots,
until you question if you ever knew how to untangle
your own soul from their gaze.

They drink your kindness
like a thief,
quenching their thirst with the salt of your wounds,
leaving you hollow,
a vessel emptied of worth.

Their praise is a dagger dressed as a gift,
the hand that caresses your cheek
is the same that lets go,
watching you fall with a silent, satisfied smirk,
like a puppet whose strings were always theirs to hold.

Yet it's never their fault, is it?
A perfect storm of self-made delusion,
swirling in a vortex of "me, me, me."
You're collateral,
a casualty in the war they wage against anything
that threatens to expose the hollow beneath their skin.

Narcissistic behaviour,
a dance of shadow and flame,
leaves only the ashes of trust
for you to sweep away.