I did not understand,
in the beginning,
why I felt so drained
every time we got together.
Slowly, I came to realize that
you are a Psychic Vampire,
one of those miserable creatures
whose sustenance
is the energy
of others.
When we meet, you sink your fangs into
the lifeblood of my emotions.
You season even the smallest task
with crisis.
This is a game to you,
always amping up the emotion,
always spinning me up,
drawing me out,
playing upon my
human
decency,
making me feel
anxious, agitated, distraught, upset, fearful, crazed –
anything
but calm.
My emotions,
your banquet,
the more intense my fear,
the more tasty your feast.
I am depleted
and demoralized,
yet still feel obligated
to keep seeing you,
to keep helping,
to keep giving,
and giving,
and giving,
until exhaustion
dogs my heels like a lost puppy.
Until I realized
that my feelings of responsibility
were part of your game,
and your game
would be eternal (since vampires never die);
always another crisis,
always another set of exhausting events,
forever spinning out of control.
So I told you:
Be gone.
{sigh}
Alas! Psychic vampires will not willingly relinquish a source of sustenance.
“What will I do without you,” you beseeched,
playing on my emotions,
your arms turning into tentacles
creeping unseen
through cracks in my determination.
You sniggered at my failure, and
smugly continued to feast.
I hacked off your tentacles and tried banishment again,
to no avail;
your cravings
stronger than my determination
in my weakened state.
So I decided
to change tactics.
Learning from you, the lessons of misdirection,
I leave your tentacles undisturbed.
Quietly, I build an impenetrable defense,
buttressing my castle walls,
filling my moat,
asking friends for reinforcement,
and rehearsing my final speech.
Today,
finally ready,
I pull up my drawbridge
and sever all your tentacles in one sweep
abandoning your blood-sucking self
behind my moat.
You shriek in agony, begging
with appeals
carefully calculated
to be irresistible.
Standing in my fortified castle
safe and calm,
I present a deaf ear to
your now-resistible pleas.
