Title: Mind Your Manners
Fandom: Original
Challenge: Rude
Rating: PG
Length: 88 lines, 300 words
Summary: The anxiety of social niceties


Please or thank you
Ps or Qs
Excuse me, pardon
Which to use?

Should I walk on
Or hold the gate?
Did I make him run?
Or is he late?

I told her no
Was that okay?
Does she even
Care much what I say?

I’m overthinking.
Yes. I am.
My mind spins on
Dear sir (or ma’am?)

I’d never aim
To give offence
Empathic wounds
Breed self defence

Flagellation: 
Years have passed
But wounds live on
The sting steadfast

And in my mind
Builds up the stress
So cautious
Not to cause distress!

(I told her no
She said okay
And only later
Brewed dismay

It’s not my fault
I didn’t know
I had no way
To see her woe

It was my big day
Not hers, not ours
She had no right
To turn it sour

She could have said
I would have heard
But she didn’t
And her hurt, it burned

She had no right
To say all that
Not six months
Afterwards of fact

It’s all too late
To change it now
The words I trusted
Disavowed

And friendly faces
Happy phrases
A second chance
To earn her praises

Doesn’t fill
That gaping void
My childlike faith
Is now destroyed)

Is it please? Or thank you?
I don’t know
I can’t be sure
My mind’s so slow

It’s all wound up
Obsessing here
On tiny details
Far from clear

The gate swings shut
Too fast to catch
Unless I wait
And hold the latch

That awkward pause
Is it too far?
Is it worse to wait?
While tight nerves scar?

It doesn’t matter
No wrong or right
No deeper meaning
To this plight

It’s just a gate
A moment’s pause
Held back; swung shut
No broken laws

But it’s hard to trust
What’s in my heart
When once one word
Tore all apart