Sunday

I tried painting you yesterday
Just so I could hold you close
Look into your eyes, and
Kiss the mouth
That promised me forever

Seven hours
Just another day in my life
Spent
Losing myself in fond moments
When you were my life

This one different
Not just acrylic like the others
With charcoal and paper
Cheap oil pastels
Oil and canvas
At first, gray
Like the bag I once gave you
(I revisit that photograph often)

Mixed media
The carnival of communications
Mischievous little bluebird
Words, written and spoken
Tethering us together
From 800 miles apart

Mixed media
The textured assortments
Lacerating, rough, slippery
Of the insecurities and expectations
The well-intentioned dreams
That cleaved our lifeline in half

Gray, always like you
The stubborn fog that still lingers in my head
Or maybe the raging smoke of our aftermath
The red, blistering passion we shared
Blend in some orange
The fruit I ripped open and ate
To temper our passion once we burned too hot
Gold — your heart — for the afterglow
That was supposed to guide us
To our future:
Happiness

So I hold you up
Grieving over what I’ve done
Realizing it could never be you
Your theater smile
Your dissociative eyes
Your moshpit brow

These thick, wet brush strokes could never
Capture your likeness
The fragmented soul within
Where I saw so much
Of myself

But perhaps I did
Beneath the stratified pigments
The strokes, the spatters, the stippling
You hide, quiet, biding
Changed

What would happen if I spilled a little solvent
And finally put you away