Poetry About Narcissism

The myth of Narcissus warns us of the danger of falling in love with our own reflection. In our modern age of selfies and curated lives, these poems explore the hall of mirrors that is narcissism. They look at the isolating nature of self-absorption and the hollow echo of a voice that only speaks to itself.

But they also touch on the necessary journey of self-love, and the fine line between healthy confidence and destructive vanity. It is a look into the pool of water, asking: who is really looking back?

Featured Poems

The Pool

Drowning in one's own image.

The water is smooth as glass. I lean in close. I see eyes that look like mine, lips that move when I speak. I am captivated. I am paralyzed.

I reach out to touch the face, and it ripples away. I am in love with a ghost. I am starving at a banquet of my own making.

- Adrian Monk

Center Stage

When you must always be the protagonist.

The spotlight follows me wherever I go. Or maybe I just chase it. If eyes are not on me, do I exist? If applause does not sound, am I alive?

I have turned my friends into audience members, my family into stagehands. It is a lonely show, this monologue of me.

- Bella Swan

Echo

The voice that goes unheard.

She loved him, but he only loved the face in the water. She called out, but he only heard her voice repeating his own words. He withered on the bank, a flower of self-love, while she faded to a whisper.

- Greek myth retelling

Classic Voices

Ozymandias

by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818)

A classic sonnet about the hubris of a ruler who believed his works would last forever, only to be erased by the sands of time.

I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said - “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Deeper Explorations

Vanity

The obsession with surface.

Filter

Smooth the skin. Brighten the eyes. Thin the waist. Upload. Wait for the likes. Count them like coins. Does the digital adoration fill the hole? Not yet. Maybe the next one will.

- Katy P.

Self-Awareness

Breaking the spell.

Breaking the Glass

I looked away from the mirror and saw you. Really saw you. Not as a reflection of me, but as a person. It was terrifying. It was real. The spell broke with the sound of 'How are you?'

- Tess D.

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