Your fingers deftly open the tiny paint bottles, and
you peek into a glossy world within. You are completely new to this, my love,
and you cannot help but feel a certain awe. Carefully, you touch the surface
and soft to your very touch, you dabble with the many hues. I see a child like
glee on your face as your slender fingers trace many shapes on the off white and blemish-free canvas,
so blank and full of possibilities. Your mind races through so many scenarios,
your imagination has taken wings. You paint me carefully, your face scrunched
up in concentration and you make clean strokes at first. But the strokes get
smudged and less sharper as you continue. At one point, you are nearly about to
pick up the easel and hurl it at the wall. Those carefully mixed colors, that glee-they all
give away when you have your first of the many moments of frustration. Pause a
moment, love, and take a look through this kaleidoscope I present myself as.
I paint myself pink when the transient moments
we share are a burst of energy and endless laughter, when everything seems
perfect. When I feel ignored and helpless, chock full of self pity and salty, suppressed
tears-I paint myself an icy blue. When your affections beams down on me rays of
sunshine, I paint myself yellow. When I feel non-attachment, the shroud of
emotions that clung to me like wet and stiff denim lifted away from my frail shoulders, I paint myself white.
When I talk to you, I am a palette of colors, an amalgam of unbridled emotions.
But when the going gets tough, the urge to become a black hole gets stronger-I
feel the pain stretch boundless, taut and infinite. Because even though you paint
me like a vision of vivacity, a feverish dream- you forget that I am but the
palette holding all these paints within me. Worn out and warm at the cockles,
your fingers only dip and swirl, dip and draw out where many did the same.
There are many faint scratches and dried out blotches that even the most
effective cleanser-time-cannot erase. My love, I wish to tell you but one
thing- whether the painting gives out or your interest disintegrates, you left your imprint on me. And one day, quiet thoughts will pass through your mind like clouds and you will smile to yourself. My love, you smile because for those fleeting moments, I was a perception, your very own chimera.
