Expressionism

Paint what stirs

---

I’ve slipped back  
into the temple of language...  
...where words once burned  
like an acid youth ritual.

They're no longer strokes on parchment,  
but sparks struck from the bones of silence,  
language as ritual,  

Not merely a view but a fever dream:  
  the gaze, the glow, the abyss,  
  the musk of memory,  
  the blueprint of chaos,  
  a pulse, a pirouette,  
  truths half-whispered through ash and ink.

Each syllable a brushstroke,

each pause a canvas stretched tight….

Paint what stirs.

You didn’t write a poem about painting.

You bled color through verse.

Am I supposed to paint now?

Are you?

Am I meant to smear stardust across the void?

And if so…

what constellation bleeds from my fingers today?

Paint what stirs.

*epilogue  

You paint with smudged syllables,  
  midnight epiphanies,  
  the ghosts of things that almost made sense.

You paint what stirs….  
the ache in your spine,  
the waitress who smiled sideways in ’98,  
the hiss of an old kettle,  
  or the way your stepfather  
  said your name  
  like it was a favor.

You don’t choose the paint….
  it spills from somewhere  
  just left of the ribcage



- UpsilonA