In the Sketchbooks

I love in you the sketchbooks
Before they praised you in the galleries

They see your aesthetics
Your one image
Your final performance
Your first impressions

I witnessed your growth
The troubles you've surpassed
Your layers of skins
A more vivid dimension than the last
Step by step
I was there

They talk about your name
The way you present yourself
So effortless
They see you
Trapped in base molding
And guilded gold

I felt every brush stroke
The pencil lines
The erasures
And every imperfection
Hidden in the redos

They see you
Merely
As a canvas

I see you
As a story
Simply repeating itself
Over and over again
For the eyes
Of these bypassers
Caged in prescheduled visits
And blank wallpaper


I make the windows
For you to sing in
You keep them occupied
As they query on your window sill
Why?
Why?
Why?




Why?
Because I felt
I needed
You to be here




Can't you appreciate
What I've done?

Building your panes
While I suffer with mine


Nowhere for me here
Time for me to move
To another canvas
To another portal
To another story
All along
You had my attention

Now it seems
I don't have yours