“as For Me, I’m Watercolour. I Wash Off” Poem by Rifhan Miller

“As for me, I’m watercolour. I wash off”
So remove this canvas, once over, twice over
I am a pretty picture, a four leaf clover
Peripatetic in the wind: you seize it, and then you release it,
You grasp it again, and then you unleash it, bit by bit,
Subsequently you decide not to enclose it again,
But you keep lingering; your footsteps and stench still remain,
Tailing its drift like an annoying fly to dinner

She said, “The anger would come back just as the love did”
So revive this canvas, once over, twice over
I paint a camouflage: It has a spot that I do not honour.
But I put it up anyway; it looks like a crease on my cheek
Implanted by your filthy mouth: that bleak physique
You plant it again, and you fashion a pretty garden
Of four leaf clovers; withering, its splendours weaken
But you keep reaping, and reaping, without sowing

And so the anger indeed returned, as I wash my colours off
Even though your's loiters, like brilliant thread sewn through me
Clumsily stitching your blemish, to this clover, to its withering tree
And to this canvas, over this gap you left behind.
I try so hard to sponge it down, and undo its grime intertwined
But you keep coming, tainting it, coming again, staining me,
Aren’t you an extricated busy bee
Your shoes aren’t by my door, but your grubby tracks remain.