Paid to Feel

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.