Paid to Feel
A record of outsourced emotion
Feelings return to those who own them.
🧠💼📄📄📄
They pay me to feel.
This is my work.
They hire me.
So they feel nothing.
I take what they avoid.
😐➡️😶
They pay me.
I grieve at funerals.
I take on their denial.
Their stress is mine.
Assignment.
Remorse. Anger. Fear. Regret.
😐➡️😶
But work ends.
My feelings do not.
They overlap.
Theirs and mine.
I cannot tell.
And I strain.
💔💔💔💔
No more real feelings.
No one feels either.
Not anymore.
I was hired to feel love.
I was hired to feel remorse.
I don't know what to feel.
But they know again.
😐➡️😶
Original story by Michelle Liiew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are oincidental.
For Vocal's What Comes Back Challenge.
About the Creator
Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin
Hi, i am an English Language teacher cum freelance writer with a taste for pets, prose and poetry. When I'm not writing my heart out, I'm playing with my three dogs, Zorra, Cloudy and Snowball.
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Comments (3)
Powerful!
Enjoyed this, Michelle. This reminds me of a story I once read about paid mourners, and if you didn't pay them enough, the family of the deceased would be offended.
Wow, Michelle, that was quite chilling. Brilliant!