He twists your regrets,
painting you
as less than the crowd
less than a glance
at the dreary landscape
you’ve brushed yourself into
his studio is filled
with tapestries of misery
grotesque statues
and pottery more fragile
than your disintegrating mind
life becomes a bitter requiem
of overwhelming negativity
a bleak symphony
with loneliness as its only refrain
but a tear in the canvas, a pause in the symphony
shatters the mosaic of woe
drawing the curtain to reveal that
it is in vain to weave a tapestry of a life not yet half-threaded
in vain to sculpt a statue of a figure still in motion
in vain to glaze pottery still drying in the kiln
Your portrait is your own, your life is how you frame it
And no artist within you
should claim it.