2 Time Capsule: Compliments

Title: Compliments
Date: 03/19/02
Setting: Life after college--during second post-college job
Form: Free verse

Do they see my discomfort?
Do I appear shy
or maybe embarrassed?
Do I act gracious
or maybe uninterested?
Do they see my cringing?
Do my actions speak truth?
For I smile and nod
I thank them and nod
And I know they have not a clue
because they continue
and I nod
Nod past the cringing
the embarrassment
the discomfort
praying they’ll stop
For though sweet their words are
For though gracious I am of their kindness
My heart aches when they speak so. 

Notes: Christmas 2001, my brother gave me a beautiful journal, red leather with a beautiful design of roses adorning the front. In reality, the journal inside was quite ordinary black canvas, but it slipped into the outer leather shell allowing for the journal to be changed once full. As is often the case with my writing, I hit a nice stride and then things taper off. This journal was no exception. I did well enough (while still writing outside of the journal), I made it five-sevenths of the way through from 2002 until 2005, with 3.5 poems in 2003, 10.5 poems in 2004 and six poems in 2005. Since then, I added three poems, one in each of the following years: 2008, 2010, and 2011. Now this of course doesn't mean I wasn't writing at all in the in-between time; I just wasn't writing in my journal. Most of, if not all, were composed late at night as I lay in bed. The journal has been, since I received it, a permanent fixture on my night stand. Maybe it’s time I made it through the last two-sevenths of the journal.

In all that rambling, I never once made note of the above poem. In case you didn't pick up on it, I don’t do compliments well—never really have. There are bits and pieces of this poem and another from the red journal (called You Look Beautiful) that found their way into a (crappy) song I wrote ages ago which is posted here on …don’t open…don’t throw away…. The ‘song’, also entitled You Look Beautiful, appears in two spots, one containing the words in their entirety and one (a voki) with a snippet of me singing the song in another post.

Artifact I:  The red leather rose journal.

Artifact II:  The original handwritten poem.