Poetry Kills

I only bought one Christmas present this year, and I'm starting to regret it.

I have yet to deliver this gift to its recipient. It's just sitting in my room upon a stack of books, wrapped in horribly tacky red Borders paper. I've purchased some less offending green paper to re-wrap it when I get the time or the courage, neither of which is likely to occur soon; if I wrap the gift, it means I actually have to give it, and that scares me.

It's not a scary gift at all. It's a copy of my favorite book, and when you give someone your favorite book--not just one you like a lot, but one that explains so much of who you are--it can leave you feeling a bit raw and exposed. I am basically handing someone 208 pages of myself, letting them into the way I think and the words that float around in my head and off my tongue. Maybe normal people don't feel this way about their favorite books, but I feel like this story is my story. It was me two years ago, sleeping on the couch in my father's living room, and on my couch in my apartment in Lawrence. I'm afraid of giving this bit of myself to someone and having them reject it, and in doing so reject me. That sounds a bit harsh, but so far I haven't met a person who didn't like the book and I think this most recent recipient may be the only one with enough intellect to say otherwise. I think this person's standards are higher than most, and that they might find my little story about a nervous breakdown and Russian peasants and well-meaning fathers bearing gifts of tangerines to be a waste of precious time.

On the other hand, maybe they will love it. It's very well-written and fraught with references to the Gospels and obscure poetry and authors familiar only to the Fat Lady herself. I'm probably just overanalyzing the situation; All I am really doing is giving someone a book, probably about the sixth person I've given this book to. It's not a big deal and it probably shouldn't be of this much concern to me, but it is because this is a person whom I greatly admire. I could say a thousand good things about them, though probably never to them because my reticence (and ignorance) has a tendency to consume me. Instead I resort to passive tactics such as this, and the impending awkward delivery of small texts concerning fainting girls and bathtub literature.

Ugh. Christmas stresses me out.