He paints.
He paints me.
He paints what I left behind.
The marks I made.
My lingering parts.
He uses lines.
Copper paint such as my hair.
True blue such as my eyes.
Chaos, passion, pain.
Always beauty.
To him I am beauty.
To him I won't leave.
I am his even if I am not.
And, so he paints.

All the admirers want to know what it is they are staring at.
What they stood in line to buy.
He speaks pretty words from a pretty mouth and says nothing of me.
They hang me on their walls.
Then it's no longer me. It is what they see.
But, to him
the lines,
the copper,
the true blue,
the spattered black.
It is me.

Maybe if he told them I wouldn't be a ghost?
I wouldn't be someone lost to grieve.
Maybe if he hadn't hidden me in lines I would be more than paint and memories?

He speaks with paint.
His art talks about what I left behind.

He forgets he left things, too.
A lot more than just his faded shirt and spare key.
He left his mark on me forever.
A wound that will never heal into a scar.