01. fingerpainting
art is born from the troubled mind:
frantic undressing of the psyche
a dip of the fingers into insanity
crooked fingers brushing repression
the chafing of id against superego
your tears smoothen the glide
kissing down to your cold little heart
(you can feel the warmth but it’s so far away)
words breach your defences
crumble down, insouciant walls
pleasure to pain to ecstasy to hatred to truth
chasing the comfort of release
it writhes within you like a restrained beast
and when you’re tipped over the edge
your scream is its roar of anguish
catharsis

02. peanut gallery
strangers observe behind monocled façades
yes, it’s quite interesting, that one
pretty pictures, pretty words
framed and presented for their pleasure
counting down the seconds to your demise
that they may finally rocket you into stardom
or some farce of it at least
because it’s only art
after
you’re dead.

03. académie
four hundred years since the starving
artist put a hungry bullet in their head
pencil scratch in the margins, inkblot
on the skin of the naked verb’s face
words like anaphora and alliteration
and assonance embroidered upon the
fabric of your creation: words put in
your cold stitched mouth, long dead
and buried in your unmarked grave.

leave me to rot, you beg, let me rest.
pennies scattered in wishing wells pay
your way to the afterlife, silvers and
coppers cold upon your tongue. but
still they never let you go, eternal
spectacle for the academics. did
you know they killed themselves?
how sad. but they were well and
truly mad, you know. unsurprising.

---

skcpoet @ Twitter, Tumblr, and Ko-fi