Suspicious Mind

“I think I will remember you,” he says.
And I have to take this as a compliment,
rays of sunshine brightening my drab world.
Did I make such an impression on him?
Or is this condescending…is it mockery?
Now I am not sure how I should take this;
I have cynic seeds growing in my brain,
I have heaps of suspicion here inside
blocking light which could illuminate the dark.
Suspicious passion revels in down time,
and brings to a halt gratitude’s regard.
And why suspicion acts like a skeptic
is not known—I fail to understand its want.
How do I feel?  Fragile, like old porcelain,
or brittle branches lying in the sun.
Is mine a world where compliments upset
the very space that’s me?  Can I not take
in gracious stead a compliment so posed?
I do not wish to generate the state
of rigidness, or of a heart walled off
to where its rhythm taunts my loneliness.
And yet some stiffening is keen this day,
with brick and mortar ample for the wall.
“I think I will remember you,” he says.

24 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
9-10-19