When You Were Just Proud

I liked it better
When you were just proud

When there weren't conditions
Or 'but's or 'however's

When there weren't critiques
Attached to every compliment

I realize that at one point
What I did was new and so
You were being supportive
Just, unrelentingly supportive
And that was great

And then that support
Started to, like, chip
Like it was being chipped away at
By--something

Maybe the fact
That it just wasn't new anymore

What it was
I was doing

But see, it seems like, you think
There was this point
Where I suddenly became
Okay
Like, confident
Like, supremely confident
In what I was doing
When in fact
I have never reached that point

I am still as insecure
And subconscious about what I'm doing
As the first day I started doing it
And so, even though this may make me sound needy
I don't care
Because I'd rather have you think I'm needy
That have you think I'm thick-skinned
When I'm not--I'm really not

And the thing is
I want to be
So I don't correct you
When you're giving me
All your critiques

But you should know
That each one of those critiques
Is like a little pebble
Being shot into my face

So I need you to stop
I need you to stop
Shooting the pebbles
Into my face

I need you
To just
Be proud

Or don't
Be proud

But, just please
Don't be a critic, okay
Don't be my critic

Because when they say 'Everyone's a critic'
They mean it

They really mean
That EVERYONE is a critic

So, can you just be one less critic
That I have to deal with?

Please

Because I really loved it
When you were just proud