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» tapestries

i learned to write on google docs
on practically an old typewriter
in a small house tucked away 
covered in trees and decked with tapestries

fourth! that
was the age of docs, when
i'd visit the house every day
like i would for an old friend
with an old friend

then in fifth!
my favourite year, as
anyone who knows me
knows 
he knows them most

i only relive them because it was when 
i started to write
when my friend spun laughter into his tapestries
and i copied them clumsily, he a professional and
i a novice

then it stopped.

and then i'd open google docs
to find the once warm house
empty and cold,
the tapestries faded and
every step a living echo of what once wad

and i left 

the house is empty
the trees dead 
and why walk its halls 
if they're not kept?

i took down the tapestries and folded them
into a blue box rimmed with gold
and i placed them under the floorboard

i thought i'd never return

moved far away
blue faded to orange
it took me a while to get used to it

i didn't weave tapestries
i painted canvas in bright shades 
i am too critical 
they are not enough

but then it became another home
more of a crowded apartment, really

and i invited my closest friendseventually my family
it was months of bliss

i painted new canvases 
and hung them up on the wall
but no matter how many people
commented on them
it never felt like enough ( i was greedy,
i was selfish, i still am, i still am )

and all my closest friends
have the same skills he does 
i never made the connection 
i was too blind to see it

then he walked into our old house
and found them again
and spun them back to life
and i came
i ran!

and then he left 

i gathered up my canvas and my paints
and i left the apartment, too
and entering back into my small house
i paint there

i weave my tapestries
but i never hang them up
they're still in that box

maybe some day 
i'll paint enough
and weave enough
and maybe it'll be beautiful 

[ 2.18.21 ]