I held the world in the palm of my hands,
and it crumbled in the melodic breath
of change.
So the world collapsed,
crickets chirped and tumbleweed rolled on by like
strange passerbys I'd come to be familiar with
these awkward interims filled the voids,
and silence became the only noise
that was comfort to me.
I played each silence like a symphony,
conducting each one; a Beethoven masterpiece
Van Gogh would have cut his right ear off in envy
if he'd seen the way I painted my silences
but none of them were starry nights
just pools of darkness I had learnt to swim in,
until I finally realised,
I was becoming a bit more Sysyphean
when I really wanted to be a bit more
Achillean.
And responsibility dawned on me like the sky on Atlas's shoulders,
and flattened the demons I'd sheltered a while
so with each day,
I began to feel a little bolder, stronger
more like a hoper,
a hero with a new name. I no longer needed to paint forlorn silences
but something sweeter
so I painted a hero. Me.
Artfully.