Box Of Paints
I feel like I am living in my box of paints.
Some days, I am plagued by every shade of blue, but I am always mindful that they have had their due, had their way with me time and time again. After all, dreams fell apart, and I have seen my share of heartache, my own as well as the heartache of those I love. And still, they are there, chilly cerulean to cold cobalt, washing up over me like waves on a beach, always there reminding me that, yes, dreams fall apart. After all, the world confirms it, day after day. So, on days when I find myself under their cold ebb and flow, I imagine myself in a tin boat, and I row in uneven strokes over such turbulent seas until I have reached the horizon at the far edge of the mottled paper where I drift into a better mood.
There are times when I seek the comfort of the summer shades, the soft yellows and golds that sometimes bleed into one another like an citrus sunset. They warm my doubts and open me to unending possibilities. I splash in their vibrancy, because hope is intoxicating and is my addiction now, so much stronger than my junkie fascination with black and grey not so long ago. not so very long ago. And if I stop by the ivory harbour of white, I still remember that the absence of colour is no respite, just another shade of dark feelings in disguise. After all, a world without colour is a world without the vitality of transient textures and tangible change, blank in its clarity and contrast, but also empty. I can not live in a space undivided, trapped in a singular light.
I often linger in the hallways of red. That is where the mad woman lives, the one who drives me to write poetry, her unrelenting passion spilling over into my fingertips. Now, as I tumble into advancing age, I realise the dangers of her reckless disregard for convention and tradition. Too often, I have seen the spatter on the wall, spots and drops, swirls and whorls of exploded ideas and ideals, a crime scene that bleeds to scarlet and defies comprehension. Perhaps it is as it must be. No one escapes the seduction of creativity and remains unaffected by the experience. All are beautifully transfigured or cruelly disfigured in some undeniable way. Metaphor is murder.
Most days, I find myself mixed in with the greens, the panorama of lush tones dripping from forest glades or washed up from summer fields alive with the buzz of nature. There, I feel most at home, away from the harsh light of the city, away from the bleached streets of pen-and-ink starkness. There, I feel most alive in the living space of abounding growth, never doubting for a moment that the green charge that explodes into bright flora and fauna will, by nature's design, fade to sepia brown along the way, fade and decay, just as surely as my strong hands will fail and shake some day. I don't much mind. When the green world falters, when my fingers lose feeling, I will remember my box of paints and all the colours that I knew as I dabbed the last tints and hints of immortality on the portrait of my kaleidoscopic life.
I feel like I am living in my box of paints.
Some days, I am plagued by every shade of blue, but I am always mindful that they have had their due, had their way with me time and time again. After all, dreams fell apart, and I have seen my share of heartache, my own as well as the heartache of those I love. And still, they are there, chilly cerulean to cold cobalt, washing up over me like waves on a beach, always there reminding me that, yes, dreams fall apart. After all, the world confirms it, day after day. So, on days when I find myself under their cold ebb and flow, I imagine myself in a tin boat, and I row in uneven strokes over such turbulent seas until I have reached the horizon at the far edge of the mottled paper where I drift into a better mood.
There are times when I seek the comfort of the summer shades, the soft yellows and golds that sometimes bleed into one another like an citrus sunset. They warm my doubts and open me to unending possibilities. I splash in their vibrancy, because hope is intoxicating and is my addiction now, so much stronger than my junkie fascination with black and grey not so long ago. not so very long ago. And if I stop by the ivory harbour of white, I still remember that the absence of colour is no respite, just another shade of dark feelings in disguise. After all, a world without colour is a world without the vitality of transient textures and tangible change, blank in its clarity and contrast, but also empty. I can not live in a space undivided, trapped in a singular light.
I often linger in the hallways of red. That is where the mad woman lives, the one who drives me to write poetry, her unrelenting passion spilling over into my fingertips. Now, as I tumble into advancing age, I realise the dangers of her reckless disregard for convention and tradition. Too often, I have seen the spatter on the wall, spots and drops, swirls and whorls of exploded ideas and ideals, a crime scene that bleeds to scarlet and defies comprehension. Perhaps it is as it must be. No one escapes the seduction of creativity and remains unaffected by the experience. All are beautifully transfigured or cruelly disfigured in some undeniable way. Metaphor is murder.
Most days, I find myself mixed in with the greens, the panorama of lush tones dripping from forest glades or washed up from summer fields alive with the buzz of nature. There, I feel most at home, away from the harsh light of the city, away from the bleached streets of pen-and-ink starkness. There, I feel most alive in the living space of abounding growth, never doubting for a moment that the green charge that explodes into bright flora and fauna will, by nature's design, fade to sepia brown along the way, fade and decay, just as surely as my strong hands will fail and shake some day. I don't much mind. When the green world falters, when my fingers lose feeling, I will remember my box of paints and all the colours that I knew as I dabbed the last tints and hints of immortality on the portrait of my kaleidoscopic life.
