Tom Clark
On the Growth of a Thin Skin
Don't be so quick to forgive and forget.
Whole empires have been built up out of perceived
Slights, all the more imposing for their special kind of dwarf
Grandeur. Anyone can be bolstered by flattery,
Whereas it takes an expert to conflate hints
Of genius from alleged insult. What else swells up
The creative self half so well as being convinced
One's the victim of a cold injustice? Exploded
Into the dimensions of a giant gas bubble
Composed of conceit, weighed down by vast
Gravity, and spinning at unimaginable speeds
Around a central negative core of deep
Dissatisfaction, one's vanity and pride
Attain the density of cosmic dark matter
For days at a time. Everyone would love
Discontent if they understood its mysteries.
Moreover, like most learned behavior
Sullenness is not closed off to any sincere prospective
Initiate. The first grievous sting of suspicion--
Say, after being cut on the street by a presumed friend--
Wears off after a few hours or days,
At which point you may begin to extract
From the wound that balm and honey of injured self
Righteousness which as everyone knows
Is Power. Forget true facts and sane
Inferences. An adept in the science of
Suspiciousness finds the galls themselves
Soothing, the trash of his reputation his obscurely desired
Briar patch. Have patience, and accept
Each erosion of your self-regard before
The hard weathers of the bad atmosphere
You invent to surround yourself with
As a gift horse. Go home, make the worst of it.
Lock the door, turn off the phone and reject
Any insinuation you may have misinterpreted things.
Somewhere there is joy, and you are left out of it,
You hope. Your best pal called you touchy behind
Your back, and the news of it's just reached
You. Nothing's as delicious as the ink
Of a poison pen. You'll have a black tongue for weeks
As you reflect darkly on earlier disaffections
From the same source, real or deduced
By the illogical hounds of a deranged
Sleuth. Study how not to take a joke.
Image yourself to yourself as the sole
Possible friend in a world incapable of that
Exalted communion. The gloom thickens, but
The little star of self-love will twinkle to
Encourage you through deeper glooms than these.
Never forget the very essence of what's right
Has been drained out of the depleted planet
Entirely, except for those precious traces
Secreted by and nurtured in your own
Solitary heart. Expanding to populate
At least one rich hemisphere with yourself,
You leave the Arabia Deserta
Of the earth's other half to the a foresaid
Insulters, fated forever to remain
Strangers to your curious private delight
In their oversight: failing to acknowledge
Your preeminence is their problem not yours. You're secure
In you cultivated hypersensitivity.
How shall one say it? To forego the idea
Of having been ill-used represents the ultimate sacrifice,
At which the sole votive celebrant
Would be yourself. Wronged, you grow larger every moment
As the race shrinks, other persons gradually
Dwindling to sub-human while you're deified
In your own mind by stages. And now you reach the acme:
That rainy, sulky afternoon in your room
On which you first find yourself able to presume
To judge the world. Self-exclusion's pure bliss
From this privileged vantage: the point at which
Sense of benefit forgot merges into meditation
Of general injustice, and accidental omission,
Far from all possibility of forgiveness,
Takes on the value which a requiting of love might
Hold for longing paramours: the whole flattering
Superstructure thrown up by pride upon
A foundation of deliberate misunderstanding
Has become the palace of your hurt feelings,
Out of which, permanently joyously
Sulking, you need never again set foot.
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