the caffeine is crucial
for this day-time creature,
the low-lit room an optional feature
for my attempted artistic-flair
paint brushes discarded on the floor
i took up drawing, graphite stained hands
and red eyes in the light of morning's sun
through the cracked window
of my old apartment-turned-studio
it was that morning i realized
the faces on paper would never
come to life
or serve a greater purpose than
good looks and candy-to-the-eye
it was that moment, i realized,
there was much more than re-creation
remixing and redoing
redundant copies of someone else's idea
and in that moment, when i realized,
talent is subjective and in the general eyes
of the artistic world, i was **** on the side
of the street where van gogh and picasso
strutted their dead-man's artistic *****.
and now i know that there's got to be something
more than staying up all night drawing from a
photograph a classmate gave to my sight
and earning ten dollars for every hour spent
dragging pencils across leaf-thin skeletons of
plants that could have grown to serve better.
and now i know i was made for something more
than sitting on my **** cold bedroom floor
and replicating the eyes of a sixteen-year-old
spanish self portrait photographer.
in the western world, the people want me as
an artist making prints of their faces and loved ones
but for the rest? my hands are needed to build homes
for those who have not had the privilege of holding a
pencil or seeing their faces on a mere piece of paper.