The Parasite | Eminem

44

You are what you choose to share with others.
It's what makes you who you are, at least to everyone else.
No one else cares what person you think you really are.
No one's waiting for you to reveal your reality.

"I'm Marlow... and I'm an alcoholic" notice that I'm not an alcoholic... but I sure am to all these people sitting in their depressing little sharing circle in the basement of a church.

Everyone here struggles with alcohol, including me.
It's what I've decided to tell these people, and therefore, it's what I am to them.

"Hi Marlow" the entire group addresses me in one loud greeting.
Their voices all low and beaten down.
It's as if my mere presence depresses them.

They keep their eyes relatively low.
Some of them wring their hands.
Others interlace their fingers.
Others pick at the little pieces of fuzz on their flannel shirts or shit quality pants.

"I don't really- I don't know what to say..." I mutter, feeling stiff and constricting.
I feel rigid and wrong.
I shouldn't be here.

"Just speak about whatever feelings are weighing on you" the leader- I guess- tells me warmly.
The people who runs these things must be some special kind of empathetic though intrinsically numb or... dissociative.

"Well... I attempted to uh... Take my life... a while ago..." I choke out, not sure if it's right or wrong, too sensitive or customary.
"I was... on this bridge.... traveling... funny. I did it while I was touring the country... guess that was the final experience I wanted to have or whatever."
What you choose to share is who you become.
"But this guy... he actually stopped, pulled over and got out... he asked me why I'd want to do it..." I chew on the inside of my cheek, giving into a sultry expression.
It's all lies, but in this moment, it's who I am.
"I told him... it was because I'm a tyrant. I'd done horrible things... and killing myself would be the only way to atone for it all..." I killed that man.
Well.
Made him kill himself.
They don't get to know that.
They get to hear about the sad sob story.
The fake manifestations of someone who can never, never tell anyone what she'd really done.

"This story has no moral... there's no catharsis... just a question." I grumble, running my hand along the strained muscles in the back of my neck.
"Is there ever a way to feel good after you'd been so terrible... and hurt the people you care about...?" I ask, not directed at anyone in particular.
I keep the question shallow, open to interpretation.
It's less painful that way.

"I believe I can speak for everyone in this room... when I say we've all hurt people under the hold of our addictions" the woman tells me, the religious nut who runs the sober living group meetings here.
"But that doesn't mean we don't deserve to experience happiness..." finishing, she brings her palms together, closed-mouth smile all full of bullshit.
Bullshit.
Bullshit.
Bullshit.
I should have known coming here was a mistake.

"We can't hold ourselves back from self acceptance forever..." she continues on, probably adoring the sound of her own voice.
In that sweet, smug tone of hers.

'If only you give yourself up to a higher power, then you'll be free from the shackles of your addiction!'
Yeah.
I should have known I was too cynical to come here.
Too much of a heathen.
A Protestant.

"And if you really hurt someone...? Not that silly drunken, bullshit kind... that really horrible, intentional way...?" I press further, wondering how far I can push this until I need to get up and leave.
I thought it would be less painful.
I hoped the disconnect would be less agonizing.
Only two meetings in - I have a very poor resolve.