I begin small, in the back corner folds of her mind, as a single mumbling thought.  A constructive critique, a natural response, a survival instinct.  In these infant years, I am easy for her to toss to the wind, like the penny-red wisps of hair she brushes over her shoulder with a smile.  She’s so pretty like that, so new, so blind to the ways of this cruel world—it nearly moves me to tears.  I can’t stand the idea of her getting hurt, getting heartbroken, losing the roses in her cheeks and that wandering gleam in her eye.  

So I spread my seeds of worry along the paths of her neurons; they begin to grow like parasites into something bigger, something she cannot ignore.  And the more she listens, the bolder I get. I work like a virus: growing, spreading, learning. I become a strategic usurper, feeding her guilt and poisonous praise until she lays down her crown and bows to me.

And suddenly, the power I yield over her is greater than her own mind’s.

No matter how many friends she has, how many shining gold stars she’s won, how many As she earns, how many people who tell her they love her, she’ll never believe it.  I’ll keep whispering in my raucous voice those ugly lies that resonate behind her ears and echo within her very soul.  I’ll rake my rotten nails against the inner walls of her brain, shrieking at her to work harder and harder until there are tears in her eyes and she’s so broken inside that she’s barely a shell of the lovely little girl whose thoughts I first took root in, and still, I won’t stop.  I can’t.

I will always be insatiable.