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Compliments

Your hair looks nice.

    Oh, thanks.

Ooh, I love your sweater.

    This old thing, I've had it for years!

Where did you find your boots?

    Well I first bought them at . . .

How do you always know what I need?

    Blank stare.


It's not that compliments aren't lovely, it's that they overwhelm.

Receiving them an admission of self-righteous ego.

That dirty word, pride. The thing to be shirked and shunned.

Once the kindness floods the senses the balloon in my hand threatens to peel the soles of my feet from the firm ground.

Lifting with tender force my heel, then footbed, until there's nothing tethering me to this earth but my twinkling toes.


So I repel.

    Decline.

        Defer.

            Deny.


Planted, I must stay planted.

For who has the right to soak in the joy of being?

Who is entitled to bask in their making?

Who . . .


But Who taught us that to be good was bad?

To be seen as pleasing, beautiful, kind was ever any sort of wrong?


I look to the balloon and receive -

    the gift of compliment,

        the reminder of my goodness,

        the promise of my beauty,

        the hope of endless pleasure.

I see its edges increasing, its interior pressing against its confines.

I close my eyes and feel the weight of my being lift

    light,

        airy,

            whispy.

There is but one big toe tethered to this earth.

With one gentle inhale I release its weight.


Freedom -

    To receive,

        To believe,

            To know.

These compliments are wide windows to You.


Looking for the T[ea]

Comments

Valerie said…
HOLY SHIT WHO WROTE THIS? Beautiful.
December 13, 2023 at 7:59 PM
Jenn said…
Gonna have to give you a compliment. :) Beautiful. The toes lifting, leaving earth. The feeling of weightlessness.
December 14, 2023 at 10:14 AM
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