self portrait

self portrait as paint

it’s like this:

there’s a paint in your palette that you never use.

it wants to be used.

it sits and waits and wants so badly to be picked,

it wants and wishes to the point of agony, desperation,

clinginess it hates itself for.

the thing is:

it’s too bright.

sometimes it overwhelms the other colors,

takes up too much space, grabs too much of the eye.

it won’t take itself seriously, always too much,

too annoying,

immature.

other times, it just sits on the page and won’t move,

disappears and stews and can’t get words out.

it hates itself for that.

the paint wants to be picked.

it sits and thinks that if it gives more it’ll be picked.

it gives too much.

it sits on the surface of the paper and if you want,

you can brush it off. no trace left.

it didn’t know how

to be important to you.

it wanted to tell you, please. pick me.

but that felt clingy, desperate, superficial, forced,

it wanted to be chosen and tried to drop hints

and made things for you and you never made things with it.

it understands. it wouldn’t pick itself either.

maybe that’s the problem.

but here’s the thing:

it’s a paint that dances

on the page and on the edge of

what things are supposed to be.

it’s roses made of ultramarine,

quinacridone artifice and stone,

a purple that isn’t quite purple

but is more than the sun of its parts.

one day, maybe you’ll see that too.