painting | Poem A Day

Posts Tagged ‘painting’

If the brushstroke embodies representation,

let this drop of paint be the thin membrane

between being and seeing. Let the exact gray

of my eyes become nothing more than gauze

through which I see the canvas, darkly. She

said show me the exact yellow of light,

and I said, I don’t paint that shit. I said

every canvas is a self-portrait, every

drop of paint is a whiff of the world

that can’t be unmade. I am painting

the world in my image, one giant white

mistake at a time. I said, stand back.

Look at this.

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone.

Frida Kahlo

In my self-portrait, I want to be truly alone,

me with me, holding hands with myself,

both my hearts exposed. I want to show

the self who loves and is the loved, and the self

who wants to cut out hearts with a pair

of scissors. The one who wears casual blue,

an old, brown skirt, she doesn’t care;

the other who wears a wedding dress, with a too

tight collar, strangled. I don’t want that. I

want what I want: the self, exposed, the shimmer

of two gray storm clouds, my hand holding my

very own hand. I want the blank canvas and the mirror.

I want to show everyone the me I thought I saw,

the self-portrait as judgment: scathing and raw.