I hide in the dark
Where I shed light on the walls,
The showman performs behind me and I only see a silhouette
I'm fighting with shadows.
Shadow boxing with shadow puppets,
The candle that light that fire will fall and the puppetry will disappear.
My hands still tied to the chair.

Sun slits in through slats
of kitchen window blinds
and she is alone.

The art major is cooking
spaghetti,
pretending her thrifted T-shirt
bearing a cotton copy
of Campbell's Soup Cans
is not stained with tears and blood.
Oh, but that's hysterics and
hyperbole;
art has a tendency of making its worshippers
melodramatic...no?
The blood is only tomato sauce
and the tears...
well, what are tears but
water and salt?
After all, dramatizing the
mundane is just one awkward shade
of artistic temperament.
Visualizing life through
a heavy silk screen.

The art major sighs and
stirs.
The spaghetti is redder and
redder as she cooks.
Just as
her paintings bleed more blood
as she dangles a brush over them -
the teary-eyed watercolours.

The art major has decided
that drawing out extremities
of colour
might transform
her own life into
a pop of a Warhol painting.

The art major sighs and
stirs.

She thinks, tries to
think
in technicolour.
Today's thought-pencilled thesis
concludes (like a brush stroke of uncertain finality) that
love is the red of tomato soup cans.
Anger is the boil, passion is
the gulp,
danger, caution, warning,
the hot breaths, fleeting warmths,
the burn and sweet and tang.
She looks down at the
scarlet of
Warhol's soup cans,
blooming in worn out cotton
on her chest.

It might as well be blood, she
thinks.
It is,
it is,
it is.
Blood red love -
tomato soup cans.

Sun sets in slits
through kitchen window blinds
and she is still alone.

The art major sighs and
stirs.
The spaghetti is ready.

I

That idol, with black eyes and pixie-cut, with
aristocrats nobler than artists, holier than New York City
hipsters; his selfishness running through her veins,
purple and blue like blood, or tarnished by amphetamines
in waves of ferocious sadness and yearning.

At the border of her life- young hope twinkles, fades
and dulls out- the girl with chandelier earrings, deer
legs, dancing in silver reflections of tears gushing
from the aftermath of shattered dreams dressed up
as vivid illusions.

Ladies who stroll outside of society, girls
plucked from art school, with trust funds, superb luxury
wardrobes, jewels on show but riches hidden in the
ground of trusting valleys in burnt gardens- young and
broken with eyes full of flashing lights, sullen, princess
of costume and keeping hidden. Gently ignored and
choked, unhappy.

What boredom, without your "genius."

It is she, the little girl, dead before innocence-
The young artist, alive, does not stoop- his life
creeks but for a second. His inspiration empty
and studio up for sale. Her shutters pulled down
and the key to superstardom in the lock forever
because the soul is empty.

The city's silver fountains drowned and cried for her
fabulous elegance.

II

I am the life who mourns like blue summertime.

I am the academic who waves manuscripts on
elusive "culture" and "style."

I am the pedestrian who looks up to the sky then turns
to the ground. Smoggy greyness and dead black
concrete pleads me to keep searching.

I might well be the same child; lost and unhappy
and hungry. Dreaming of touching stars but miles
from Heaven.

I am the artist. Manipulative creator and selfishness
embedded into the sinews of my heart.

The lamp shines brightly on these happy photographs. I
keep falling for these stupid books. Edie, oh, Edie.
You have gone and the world is ending!

Nurture your gift
Don’t let it sleep
Grab a pen
Stare at a stem
Think of a story
No, don’t feel sorry
We are all little
But in our writings,
Everything can be better
Strong men can be brittle

Paint a face
Lift up a soul
Strike some lines
Bring them colorful rhymes
Put some color
Give them a nice odor
Splash positivity and be an author
Or be a painter and be the next Andy Warhol
No, don’t you give up
You can bring up someone

Where is my Campbell Soup Can? My Candy Darling, Edie Sedgewick, my "Factory"?

I was promised 15 minutes, it said so on the box, on the manual of life, now where is it?

Did I pass it? Dismiss it? Was it at the bottom of the ******* Jack box I so carelessly tossed aside?

I think not. I think it does not exist, and therefore I think Andy failed me.

Andy lied.