Breaking Down Is An Artform Poem by sandra geisell

The deep sfumato shades of ghosts haunt these syllables.
They walkwhisper through our memories;
Pale, misunderstood, they lead this endless waltz
Over the flawless field of canvas - this machine.
It's clattering, insipid as the fragile light of dawn

It freezes us dry.

And all through this night, this sable rose
Caught with the buckshot of stars; I'll be dreaming.
A misled hope of reprieval - or reprimand - to stop
These riddles of holes and riddles of riddles
From breaking through my thought-process
And deep into that chaotic sea of schizophrenic affray.
You know, if we give in, we can seperate ourselves;

And this alarm, beep beep beep beep
Will mean nothing - awake is a reality worth forsaking.
It's a bitter morrow on the rise as it is.
We can forget. I'll run around in uncertainty and
We can play doctors and nurses with our bruises
Inside and out.

I'll push you and regret it, I'll apologise
And you'll say its all okay.
I'll be pushed and say I'm sorry for being who I am.
This is a spiral. Did you know you can't swim upstream
In a black hole? That your body is wrenched, then scattered
Into a thousand thousand little molecules and cast about like dust?

A memory won't lie.

I was someone else, a painter, my eyes cast beautiful eulogies.
My paintbrush was a pen and my faith in humanity wrote me to believe.

But how can I write with my hand covering your face?
Lest you spew forth some unrequited truth, obscure and focused
Like the sun.

You'll turn me to cinders with that gaze.