Disenchanted

“You look lovely,” he says. I can hear his tenor voicing these words close to my ears. They dance around my ear lobes for a while and somehow they feel like an itch nearing my eardrums. But close is as far as they get, and I turn my head to look at him. I glare like I heard nothing. I guess that teeny weensy rush of wind I went against in the process swept those words away. In all sincerity, I felt nothing.

My walls went up, on hearing those words. My fatal and first instinct is to bat away these words people use as gate-passes into our fragile hearts. Most of the time they want something right? So during my vincible days my head goes sprawling, “oh! What does he want? Definitely not me. With all this height I still look so naive? At only the first glance? Or what’s his dysfunction anyway. Would you save those words for that other girl? she looks like her life depends on it.

I’m furious within this poker face and beneath the neatly plaited lines on my head. He is probably thinking I am mean. He feels like he deserved a smile back, or a thank you. He gets none of those. I’m cold, I’m the ice queen of the grassland savanna, you poor soul. I am not gratified being icy nonetheless because, life made me.

Once upon a time I was all warm and smiley and overbearing with love. I gave my all effortlessly and abundantly. I showered strangers and friends alike with my blessings. Unrequited, I somehow did not inspire goodness in kind. Some even got me committed to their BS and ignobleness and gave me in ungoldly amounts.

So how does my being lovely get insolence in return? See why these compliments sound so vain sometimes? I am not a mind reader to tell genuine souls from mere facades. I lost my mojo for random kindness when these words spoke contrary to the action deserving. Letting this kinda-nothingness fill my bean shaped brain? What for now? Can I afford to build up more bile?

Hey Mr/Ms dishing-out-compliments-like-Halloween-candy, don’t quit though. I apologize for those of us who keep dodging them like arrows but you know, does it matter? Tenda wema, nenda zako. We kinda forgot how to act around flattery and there is shimmering hope our faith will gradually grow. Having a cemented heart is the least of my desires. I would do anything to be as soft as a baby’s bottom again, best believe.

See you in my next post!