Trace my curves in charcoal,
Sketch my lines in lead,
Fill in all my shadows,
As I lie naked on this bed.
Warm my hues in pastels,
Draw in every part,
Adore me with your paint brush,
Turn my body into art.

To stare at a bowl of fruit

To become intimately aware of a pear's curves,
The pores of a lemon peel.
The velvet of a peach.
To meditate for hours on the shadows of grapes.
I long to stare at a bowl of fruit.
To hear nothing but wind and paint strokes.

painting is butchery
is beautification of breaths

as they bubble hastily out

sometimes mad
like suddenly breaking glass
or pond

sometimes springs
tinkling down stones

painting is thunder
slowly rising
or the perfect fury of it

I hesitate, stuck astray,
as the hues awaiting
wait

reap or harvest, must I burn or
decorate?

but, tentative, I breathe
inevitably on

and suddenly
it is all here

The poet
of the night
closed her
eyes, and
dreamed of
little stars
as details
in the small
moment of
beauty she
beheld, as a
painting
once hidden,
now coming
alive before
her eyes, as
wondrous
as when
she had
first
met the
pages
of a book,
and held
them
more
dearest
than the
petals of
a flower
held close
to her
heart,
forever in
bloom.

Day after day, we go through the motions
Like waves searching for shore in the middle of the ocean,
Following along as we get swept by the current
Again and again, waiting for the day it’ll end.

I was lost in this sea of people when I saw him.
A mere glimpse from my periphery, I almost missed
His tear-streaked face and his bleeding knee,
And I thought to myself, how did I not see?

My eyes caught the way his shoulders sagged
From carrying the weight of the world on his back.
He’s only a child but his fate seemed worse than Atlas,
His young body shackled by greedy insatiable hands.

I wonder if someone witnessed his despair,
Picked up a brush and decided to share
The story of a boy whose future was stolen
By heroes who were nothing but villains.

His pleas echo in every brushstroke
And while my hands can never replicate
The vivid imagery offered by paint
He can live on in the words I create.

I was woken up by a nightmare.
I woke up in the middle of the night
when I had fallen asleep
and a poem was finished.
The silence makes the painting 
in the air I breathe,
feel heavy, feel suffocating.
My throat is dry.
And on such a thirsty night,
a poem ordered an inkbox
and a piece of paper,
and I ordered a bottle of beer
and a cigarette and also a lighter,
and night ordered

itself for me.