painted over

each prospect of time (cyclical, linear, parallel, frozen) made sense when I

cut my hair so you could cradle my skull and I started wearing glasses

like an adult. "We should paint again," you said, snapping a chocolate bar

in your hands. Last spring, you undressed me before an empty canvas. My

paintbrush yielded nothing but droopy question marks. Unruly shapes and

shadows (sequestered meaning dried under my fingernails) crept, piled,

enfolded into despair. My puerile trembling art. A vortex painted over.