Seen plenty of far off faces
removed from themselves,
layer after insipid layer of the "free world"
just trying to fit inside itself.
Matryoshka dolls
painted in the fashion of a Mona Lisa.

My darlin,
deep down are you smiling?
If I touched you would paint chips curl upward
like arms made of wet paint
I am peeling back with no friction.
Something certain to be there
but cannot be touched
something I feel so sure to be in want of.
If  only I knew what it was.

I am eight keys
of a singular octave,
in a stairway of pianos stretching from here
to the sun.
Much like the visible spectrum
clamoring to amount
to all there is.
So much of the world, ourselves included, fumbling in the dark,
unseen
but never untouched.