Up close it is blurry
But when you zoom out, grateful
The masterpiece can be seen.

My face has always been malleable
a canvas of clay the nearest set of
hands could mold into whatever
they wanted.
It was soft and pliable,
changing with pinches and plucks
at my skin.
A girl of many faces,
never seeing her reflection the same
never knowing who she was
without the influence of others.
I don't know who you want me to be.

I don't know how to look past
all of the false layers of me
my face has been remade so many times
I can't even see what the original color was
or if there even was one.
I wonder if you have been shaping me
my whole life.
Always guiding and changing
what made up me
a hand on my back, steering.
Did you even look at first
to see what you were destroying?
Did you deem my real skin unworthy
of your time and energy?
Did you not like what you saw?

I want to hear you admit
to your mistakes.
I want your hands to bleed with
all the paint you've covered me in.
I want your mind to picture
everything you took from me
every impulse and dream and curiosity
you pushed out of my reach.
I want you to know
that I see where your hands have been
your fingerprints are all over me
my soul tainted with the essence of you
you took me from myself
you ruined me.

I was a masterpiece before you even
picked up the paintbrush.

Seems the spirit ever mends,
though the light behind it bleeds.
Poor lamp am I…how strange
that the mind should sharpen
while the maggot feeds.

Each day the world grows older,
yet her face remains fair, her view serene.
I’ve seen the way she jades her young,
and watched her fields rush green.
But only as the sight grows weak
can at last these old eyes see
what waits the clear, unbroken pools
in wide eyes peeking back at me.

You children play, and don’t mind me.
The sun lies full where I drift, content.
If I seem to be brooding
on happiness spent,
then forgive me, I’m grateful
to not have to brood on sorrow.

So you children play. Can it truly be!
Did time once bend, could slights once heal…
it seems so long—seems scarcely real,
that I was a creature of yesterday
who could not see past the morrow.

And where is that child now?

Is he dead, was he dreamt, is he lost for good,
or is he only sleeping?
He would run, he would leap, he would laugh if he could.
He has savored his life, has drunk it to the full.
Why then is he weeping?

No, you children play, and don’t mind me.
Embrace this splendid, fleeting day.
Look away.

Cling to the cup while the taste is sweet,
and bask in the light of your youth.
Ah, what is youth but a longing for age,
and age but a longing for youth.

Watch the blue dream resuming,
feel the moth in the fist.
Taste that warm promise tendered
in a child’s first kiss,
grown cold in the arms of the hunter,
matured, developed to—

This?

No, you children play, you children play.
The leech has yet to find you,
let your blood sing while it may.

The rabid angel’s eyes are bright,
her loving voice is lying.
Her ***** heaves, but the heart is cold.

Season to season, her black shadow clings.
Lamb after lamb, how pleasantly she stings.

All our lives we look to things. I tell you, by my eyes,
there are things behind things…stirring bashful children,
spiteful children—the angel drives her docile prey;
herding awkward children, skipping children,
skipping their childhood away.

No feat of man, no higher hand,
no will can hold the years at bay.
Alone, I watch them, day by day,
growing, slowing in their play.


Okay. NOW CUT AND PASTE THE LINK BELOW TO READ HERO, A SPRAWLING, GROUNDBREAKING FANTASY FOR GROWNUPS IN TWO PARTS. (BUT YOU MUST CLICK ON THE PROVIDED LINK AT THE CONCLUSION OF PART ONE TO ACCESS PART TWO! THAT’S WHERE THIS TALE’S AMAZING RESOLUTION LIES. But please...intelligent, soulful readers only!)
NOW HERE’S THAT LINK:

https://allpoetry.com/poem/14922744-Hero---Part-One-by-Ron-Sanders


Copyright 2020 by Ron Sanders.

contact:
ronsandersartofprose@yahoo.com

watching you draw
all the beautiful things you saw
creating worlds
with the movement of your wrist
drawing the lips you've kissed
i see my eyes form
pencil creating a storm
fingers grasping
holding it tightly
lips parting slightly
creating my curls
dark golden locks in swirls
you look up and me and smile
and i want to look at you a while
fingers entwined
as the masterpiece is signed

There is art
In your heart
Painting pictures
When I lay
My head down on your chest.

There are songs in your eyes
Singing lullabies
When you hover
Pin me down
With your stare.

There is a poem
on the tip
of your tongue
I taste it
When I kiss you.

You are a masterpiece.