Needed Inner Work

15 April 2026

https://poems.culturing.net/2026/04/15/needed-inner-work/

The transference becomes apparent to me:
there was another narcissist, deserving but never receiving
my condemnation. Now I have condemned another
who may or may not have deserved it. But this
has healed me. Only this could have healed me.

It led to the needed confrontation. It led
to the needed inner work.

This deep wound, this habitual shrinking
in the presence of one who would take all space,
who expected a carbon copy of herself
and would accept no substitutes,
she is the monster of my nightmares,
the reason my inner voice nearly died.