Babel, baby

“You are such a good listener.” 

“What a good question!” 
“You are so smart.”
“Your hair looks great today.”
“You did a really good job on that presentation.”
“You are so strong and tough.”
“Wow! You look amazing!”
“I love your glasses!”
“You always see the good in things,”

The words flow and emptiness follows.

—
Hailstones battering against greenhouse windows
Toxic hot-air blow-darts meant to inflate your ego with poisonous ideas
Hookworms that rot your brain and make you think the ground you tread on is safe and holy
Mark Twain aphorisms: lies, damn lies, and compliments
Prybars of people-pleasers and the powerful
Soft soothing of an infinite ache you wish no one else would notice
Razor-blade joy of being seen and known
Sparks of flirtation, and adoration, that could burn down your world and leave you new

—
Your words make meaning of me, and I wish you’d stop.
Stop playing in the clay of my thoughts, stop forming me and my heart.
“You are a vase!” you shout, “a brilliant bowl, an ornate teacup, a brick for building cities.” 
“Oh no! You are mistaken, sir! I am ‘adam, a clay man, unfired and lumpy.”

There’s enough debt in all the world, there’s no need for me to owe you a “thank you”, too. 

—

And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.

And they said to one another, “Go to, your hair is like gold, your ideas are thoughtful, your listening skills unmatched.”

And they said, “Go to, let us make each other like brick. Let us build ourselves up like a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered and lonely upon the face of the whole earth.”

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower and the people who built each other up. 

And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do. Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse them, so they cannot receive from each other in goodwill. So the Lord sent them self-doubt, and social awkwardness, and low self-esteem, and mismatching self-image. And so they were dispersed to wander lonely the face of the whole earth and they left off building the city and each other. Therefore the city was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the people of the earth.