Poem: October 26, 2019

Artful

Perhaps all we have
are the pictures we paint
for one another

of ideal weddings and
neighborhoods. classrooms
and homes, our futures together.

Our brushes drip with promises
and warnings, paint mixed
with what can and must not be.

We create great galleries
of dreams, museums to herd
each other through, designed

to move masses, to stir up
the heavy parts of us,
prone to sinking

to the bottom of the can.
What is is not what could be.
What is is what we agree

to find beautiful, frightening, true.
If enough of us gaze long
enough, if we find ourselves

together, gazing back, then
haven't we found our great society?
Haven't we come to consensus?

Together we outline Heaven.
Together we extrapolate Hell.
Bold colors, thick lines and frames.

Think about the power
of our shared definitions, the logic
of tenets, best practices, rites, and systems.

Behold the self-fulfillment
of governments and parties,
the infallibility of religions,

born from the human gut,
the sticky reason of pain and longing,
the cruelty of the self and the every.

Perhaps all we have
are the pictures we paint,
and we will always be painting.