Compliments and Comparison

A compliment falls flat

And becomes quite lame

When one turns it into

The comparison game.

When one says, “Your skill

Is quite amazing.

Now Jamie, look at her

You should do the same thing.”

When one says, “You’re well behaved.”

Then turn to their child, Drew,

And say, “Look at them,

And do what they do.”

And then Jamie or Drew

Protest and say,

“I am doing what they do,

Just in a different way.”

And then the parents go on,

Saying, “I know but…”

You want to escape, do something,

But you don’t know how or what.

So, you shift around

In your seat, in your chair

Look this way and that

Wishing you were never there.

Wishing the compliments had stopped

At “Your skill is amazing,”

“You’re well behaved,”

And had not been used for comparing.

Wishing that person

Had never said a thing,

Since the feel-good compliment

Contorts into a painful sting.

Wishing that person

Had not put you in the spotlight

Just so you would be burned

In the small heated argument in sight.

Wondering why a person

Would lift you up with words

Only to shoot you down, using you 

As their child’s role model afterwards.

The blessing the person offered

Quickly becomes a curse

Which they are unaware of

Which they do not reverse.

The curse imprisons you,

Brands you with a name

As An Unwitting Pawn

In the Comparison Game.

No compliment is safe

In the comparison game

They all turn to insults,

Causing embarrassment and shame.