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Compliments

Their words were disingenuous. Dripping with desire. Oozing with intention. They made her cringe and retreat in the opposite direction of their manipulations. She felt it in the tension in her back, in the slight urge to vomit, in the urge to hide. She wouldn't smile in return, or feign pleasure. What did they want? What did their slippery smiles try to elicit? She wouldn't give it to them, and so they called her a bitch. -j

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Looking for the T[ea] said…
Ooh, this bites in a sassy, self-assured way. Painful but also proud.
December 14, 2023 at 1:35 PM
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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 th...
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