I cannot take a compliment.
Or so I've been told.
Yet I still have to accept them, like unwanted gift cards on my birthday.

Compliments.
They are not taken.
They are given.
Even if they are not needed.

I've been told all my life I can't take one.
Then why must you insist of giving them?

I understand, I do.

A close friend speaking from kind admiration is sweet.

But listen.

A wildflower does not need validation.
It grows despite any spoken words.

Dandelions require sweet nothings,
The whispering kindness of desire.

It takes little more than a breath to blow them over,
They break underneath anything other than quiet breaths.

I am a sunflower.
I stand tall and proud beneath a hot sun.

I grow to my own height and no one else's.
I sway beneath unkind assaults, and it takes more than battering words to break me.

So try to understand, I don't need your reassurances.
Tell me not what I am, but what I do to you.

In a world full of weeds, try to grow a little wild.