I am Made of Paint and Light – Day Fifteen of NaPoWriMo 2022

She stands in the distance,

The smell of a memory on her hands

Old blankets and old incense,

Old meals and tangerine melancholy and wick-fire soot,

The smell of sharp turpentine and paint

Reaching for me, like tentacles floating in the air

She stands in the distance,

Sunbeams dripping from her fingers

She stands, with a question on her face

And I watch her, and I can only imagine

Time standing still, frozen; my soul immortalized in a single stroke of tantalizing yellow

I am made of paint and light

Here, in a standstill moment, maybe as a sprite, maybe a blob,

Existing only as indiscernible pigment, amidst drowsy blues and popping greens

I won’t ever sleep here

I won’t ever talk about the sun or the moon, the stars or the clouds

Here, in this little patch, where all our secrets are held

We’ll lay our feet on the dirt where all the dreamers went to get lost in

She, as a two-toned goddess

In glittering gold garment

I, as her stately muse

Being of the sun, beam of radiance

We are in a painting, the two of us

She holds my hand, in the glow of our own bodies

And the warmth of her palm

I feel it in my throat, and on my face

We are in a painting, you and me

And the way you lay in my arms

I feel a stranger in my own home

Who are you, who are you?

In one strange city of love, I found you

What does real mean? It eludes me

Lost in a dreamer’s world

We seek refuge on the edge of a grove where the water bubbles and sings

When the riverbed is dry

Where shall our feet splash by?

 Written by Radhika Krishna for MTTN

Edited by Avaneesh JD for MTTN

Featured Image Two seated women by a woodland stream by Mary Cassatt 1869