Broad Strokes

A Poem

Photo by Amauri Mejía on Unsplash

oh, you’re painting me in lines —
and i can’t recall what’s going to happen
between the fall and the becoming
as if there’s an upside to everything
when i fell, fell, fell
as if there were no parachute

oh, you’re dreaming in some semblance
of a half-watered down sense of happening —
and i can’t reach you there, no matter what i do,
because i was going to win the whims
and take the tides of an unbecoming
and right the wrongs done to me

oh, you’re self-made in the wrong ways
until we can’t leave up above or down below —
as if there’s an undercurrent of meaning,
as if there’s a purpose to this life,
as if there’s a trend to the daydream,
as if i can ever see what leaves me behind

and i knew there were misfortunes
behind your eyes —
but i didn’t realize
they fell so deeply,
so deeply,
like Alice falling down the hole