The Painter

Awaken to the oils, my love

For dreams have left us steeped

In the residue of of our greatest sins

Who only recognize their own reflections

How are the shadows in my heart any different

Than those who dare walk at midday

But a reminder of the prior night's darkness

My shadows are brighter, bolder

Well outlined across the sidewalk

The painter's possessed brush hand

Has drawn them of their own accord

This canvas I stretch across the world

Love, it was blank before I came here

Now, we're both filthy with color

And you would dare resign

To such small fates

When faced with the infinite potential of life

You would sacrifice chaos for order

An order whose destination is as clear

As the path behind it

I would be a coward to grant you that weakness

A lesser man may, but no great thing

Has ever been accomplished safely

Quietly, instead we must thrust ourselves

Screaming into the abyss, gather every ounce of strength

We may accumulate, and expend it

So I will not paint what you commission in words

But what the eyes ask of me, what the soul reaches

And pleads for, and you're going to hate me for it

Until I am but a spec on your horizon

Then you will long for me, call to me

And I will not answer, will not hear, for my canvas

Is stretched far from here

But I will smile, and know

You see this art for what it is

That a gift has been given for which

No recompense can be made

And know now, love, that you would dare design

Such towering days

That your shadow shall dance boldly across them.