Vintage

You've been staring at that wall

For quite some time now.

I know that that painting evokes some reaction in you.

You may not be able to put your finger at it

But the brushstrokes remind me of the gentleness

With which I touched your spirit.

That, there, may remind you of when I ran my fingers

In zigzag patterns over your skin

And I know, over there, is the same detachment

You claimed my eyes had

When we sat after some

Detached love making.

We had coffee then.

The brown and black at the edge of that painting is

Not reminiscent of that moment, and I know you

Didn't think of it at all

But I hope it touched you somewhere,

Right in your spirit

Because I remembered that conversation we had

And that unnecessary splotch is an ode to it.

I told you then; I wanted fame.

I was sick of throwing paint on the ground and

Watching it wash away with my tears

Because when I created, it was not

My hands at the job

But some inner phantasm that

Took control of me and

That phantasm spirited itself away

Through my fingers

Through my eyes

And through your voice

When you never asked me not to cry.

You understood it was necessary

For someone whose lips chewed the end of a joint

But whose fingers could never fashion the energy

Necessary to light it up

To not want to explain her tears

But to watch them create their own

Patterns, mingling with the color

She saw like she saw the diffused rays of sunlight

Every dawn after the nightmare of

Endless, ineffective sleeping pills got over:

Liberation.

I loved how you regarded me as some stray dog.

You wanted to come close to me

But you were afraid I'd bite if you came too close

Secretly, I'd laugh at the wary expression your eyes wore

When you would ask a question

And I wouldn't answer

Just stare at you, blank faced

Because I guess, I guess you really didn't get my

Bohemian ways.

That little burnt sienna at the edge is an ode to that expression

I swear I've spent hours before a mirror trying to recreate

You do not know this, but I would have taken that fatal step

When someone I admired told me I was worthless

If that expression was not in my memory;

Affixed and vintage.

Imagine, if you can,

Me; standing at the very edge

Of that diffused sunlight,

My paintbrush in hand,

Ready to give in to what you knew I couldn't control

But hysterically laughing because that expression that 

Could never be mine

Made me whole.

"I want to be famous."

That's the last sentence I said,

When you found me out of bed,

4:30 AM, in front of another day break.

That was the only time I saw you angry,

And you held my wrist too damn tightly

Because you were afraid of letting go

Of what you never possessed

And your spirit knew what your practical

Starched collar shirt and crispy buttered toast mind

Didn't.

I was never yours to begin with.

You left that day, suitcase in hand 

And as you packed, 

You threw a palette through the center of the canvas

I cried most before, because

I knew it demanded something of me,

And I could never complete it.

And that little heart, right at the center

Is my memory of it.

I think the lady next to you is your wife

And she loves what you've seen and wonders if you'd buy it.

When you look at her, it isn't the vintage confusion with which you

Looked at me.

It almost looks like something I could never feel.

I think it looks like love, something

Starched collar shirt, crispy buttered toast real.

And I can hear you say,

"I think I used to know this painter..."

And I can hear your spirit say,

"In the diffused sunlight, I can still see her."

(This is a three part series about an artist's failed relationships. 

Here is the prequel: http://betweentheparenthesis.blogspot.in/2015/04/the-nostalgia-prequel-to-vintage.html?m=1)