Painting of a life

[bluepalm]

I preface this poem by saying that at two levels,

(1) deep down where I started at birth, before life distorted me, and

(2) now, well supported by my anti-depressant medication and functioning pretty well day to day,

I am a happy, open, hopeful, friendly person with an abundance of life energy and creativity which I express freely, including through painting art works. I have had someone say of me that 'people are attracted to you because you have such a strong life spirit'.  Another person, a complete stranger, came up to me and said 'you have a golden aura'.

However these perceptions are deceptive. The impact of trauma never leaves me and unfortunately threatens to overwhelm my natural happiness and life energy unless I am constantly vigilant. I need to work to retain my day to day functioning. That work is a constant reminder of how trauma is embedded in my body like rusty nails deep in wood, threatening the strength of the structure that is my life.

At the level of those rusty nails, this is how I feel my life looks inside me. This is what threatens to overwhelm the surface functioning. Take away the support of medication and this dark vision is where I will naturally reside.

Portrait of a life

Most of the canvas is clouded with blackness
swirling, suffocating, down to the bone blackness,
interrupted here and there by violet explosions of rage,
and jagged cadmium yellow marks,
where ideas of self destruction predominate.


There are innumerable areas where
watery prussian blue tears of despair
have caused the paint to run down the canvas.
In fact the whole painting is in danger of slipping off the canvas,
undermined by grief, by a sense of life unlived.


The life that is the subject of this portrait
must have been untethered or poorly grounded,
distorted by the effects of human cruelty,
too early and too often,
longing for the relief of being rubbed off the canvas altogether.

bluepalm