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#falseguardian
I disappeared into books like drowning in reverse— coming up for air felt like the interruption, the world outside the pages a place I had to visit but never wanted to stay. Four hundred pages between dawn and dusk, spine cracked so many times it remembered my thumbs, and I knew every character's breath, every turn of phrase. It wasn't enough to consume—I had to create. Worlds poured out of me onto loose-leaf, poems that said what I couldn't speak aloud, stories where I could be anyone, build anything. This was breathing. This was how I made sense of everything I couldn't hold inside. I was eleven when the poems worried them. Twelve when all that feeling on the page seemed like something to diagnose. Instead of notebooks, I got appointments. Instead of questions about my worlds, questions about why I retreated into them. That's when it burrowed in. The parasite doesn't announce itself. It sounds like the people who raised you, sounds like concern, like love, like they must know better than you do. And when you're twelve, you believe them. Maybe this is just fantasy, just escape. Maybe all this making is just hiding. They're trying to help—they wouldn't hurt you on purpose. So maybe the thing humming in your chest, the thing that felt like truth, was never real at all. The parasite wraps itself around that doubt and whispers: What if they're right? But you can't stop creating—it's still who you are. You keep trying. You keep making. Only now you're waiting for them to say it matters, and they keep asking why you haven't done something useful instead. The parasite grows. It learns their cadence, their timing, the exact shape of their disappointment. Years pass. You leave. Miles between you now, thinking distance will starve it. But it's already inside. Now when you share what you've made, the waiting feels like standing on trial. Every hour of silence gains weight. The kind words that do come feel thin, and the parasite knows how to turn them: Politeness. Pity. They didn't know what else to say. Logic knows better— people are busy, distracted, living their own lives. But the parasite is older than logic. It was there first. It speaks in the voice of the ones who made you doubt before you were old enough to know you were allowed to trust yourself. And they still feed it. Even now, when you've built a life they can't reduce to wasted hours— that slight hesitation, that subtle redirect, the question that means: when will you be serious? So you've stopped calling. Stopped visiting. Let the distance do what it does. Because the boy who knew what mattered, who filled notebooks and didn't question whether he was enough— he's still in there somewhere. Sometimes I find him. The words come like they used to, worlds unfolding without effort, and for an hour, maybe two, I'm twelve again and the creating is easy as breathing. Then I read it back. The words sit strange on the page. Clumsy. Forced. Wrong. I used to do this—I know I did— but now it feels like watching someone else's hands, like a skill I never learned at all. Like I'm fooling myself. Like I've been fooling everyone. A talentless hack playing pretend. There it is again. Every time I reach for him, the parasite gets there first. And I can't tell anymore where their doubt ends and I begin.
0
Nov 8, 2025
Nov 8, 2025 at 4:20 PM UTC
Nodrog
Parasite
I disappeared into books like drowning in reverse— coming up for air felt like the interruption, the world outside the pages a place I had to visit but never wanted to stay. Four hundred pages between dawn and dusk, spine cracked so many times it remembered my thumbs, and I knew every character's breath, every turn of phrase. It wasn't enough to consume—I had to create. Worlds poured out of me onto loose-leaf, poems that said what I couldn't speak aloud, stories where I could be anyone, build anything. This was breathing. This was how I made sense of everything I couldn't hold inside. I was eleven when the poems worried them. Twelve when all that feeling on the page seemed like something to diagnose. Instead of notebooks, I got appointments. Instead of questions about my worlds, questions about why I retreated into them. That's when it burrowed in. The parasite doesn't announce itself. It sounds like the people who raised you, sounds like concern, like love, like they must know better than you do. And when you're twelve, you believe them. Maybe this is just fantasy, just escape. Maybe all this making is just hiding. They're trying to help—they wouldn't hurt you on purpose. So maybe the thing humming in your chest, the thing that felt like truth, was never real at all. The parasite wraps itself around that doubt and whispers: What if they're right? But you can't stop creating—it's still who you are. You keep trying. You keep making. Only now you're waiting for them to say it matters, and they keep asking why you haven't done something useful instead. The parasite grows. It learns their cadence, their timing, the exact shape of their disappointment. Years pass. You leave. Miles between you now, thinking distance will starve it. But it's already inside. Now when you share what you've made, the waiting feels like standing on trial. Every hour of silence gains weight. The kind words that do come feel thin, and the parasite knows how to turn them: Politeness. Pity. They didn't know what else to say. Logic knows better— people are busy, distracted, living their own lives. But the parasite is older than logic. It was there first. It speaks in the voice of the ones who made you doubt before you were old enough to know you were allowed to trust yourself. And they still feed it. Even now, when you've built a life they can't reduce to wasted hours— that slight hesitation, that subtle redirect, the question that means: when will you be serious? So you've stopped calling. Stopped visiting. Let the distance do what it does. Because the boy who knew what mattered, who filled notebooks and didn't question whether he was enough— he's still in there somewhere. Sometimes I find him. The words come like they used to, worlds unfolding without effort, and for an hour, maybe two, I'm twelve again and the creating is easy as breathing. Then I read it back. The words sit strange on the page. Clumsy. Forced. Wrong. I used to do this—I know I did— but now it feels like watching someone else's hands, like a skill I never learned at all. Like I'm fooling myself. Like I've been fooling everyone. A talentless hack playing pretend. There it is again. Every time I reach for him, the parasite gets there first. And I can't tell anymore where their doubt ends and I begin.
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