*“Are you on drugs?”

What has happened to my mother?

She never answers when I talk to her.

She’s married to a narcissist.

For years he’s gas-lighted her,

Made her feel that she’s the crazy one, 

Triangulated her, to make her jealous,

And to vie for his attention,

And isolated her from any friends or family 

She might have known before.

I just had someone try this on me.

I dumped him summarily.

I can’t afford to repeat this cycle.

I can’t afford to be on drugs,

Like my Mother.

Now I see her. She stares numbly.

I think she has dissociated.

There is only a hollow shell 

That cannot feel his cruel demeaning insults,

And her true self has gone somewhere else.

Or she’s on drugs,

Or needs to be.

She’s married to a narcissist.

-jenn