By now, I am your decoupage constructed of inertia and monochrome, sterile and dispassionate.

Decoupage

You have once again imported
the Scandinavian winter in here,
sealing the heater with your veil
of laconism
while I relapse

into something similar.

Eventually you speak
of a disappointment
that divides the only warmth in this residence
and me along with it.

I have no passion, you say.
What I have are rubber bands around my heart.

They account for
my virginal canvases,
permanently sharp pencils,
and the easel
shut away in obedience.

My crisis
according to you,
is not in the lack of creativity.

Rather,
it is an inability to
give completely.

Rather,
it is an inability to understand there are
no trespasses in attempting
to paint beauty in grief
or grief in vermilion.

And that I am too afraid
to discover mistakes
after strife,
can be what sets me
free.

By now,
I am
your decoupage
constructed of
inertia and monochrome,
sterile and dispassionate.

I contemplate on the shadows
of your words;
You are the untouched canvas,
I am the failed artist,
and this barren apartment
is testament
to art existing only
in epitaph.

I cannot tell you without
risking fidelity,
that passion exists
outside of
hieroglyphs and frayed brushes.

They are in the form of
words,
can be arranged to signify
beauty, grief, strife and mistakes,
can be pigmented
into vermilion.

And I can only imagine,
shredding this poem
into confetti of
letters and words,
each piece to
cement
what you believe
I have

broken.