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To the Painting I'll Never Paint

By Nahnah Najeeb


I dip my sore fingers into the bleeding poetry,

After tearing the hairs of my art brush,

To paint you.

I sit by the shores of my imagination

and stain my thoughts on to the paper,

reluctantly aching over and over again

on an unsung song.

I can't come home 'cause

I have my heart trapped in the lungs,

I can't breathe,

I can't feel.

I am a puppet with broken strings.

But tell me,

Why should I paint you, my darling,

I'm a roofless building,

Incapable of holding you,

Unable to latch your world,

And I inhale this crushed air of love and war,

And you, my darling,

Is a soft monument.

To you,

To the painting I'll never paint,

don't dream an inch of colours and joy,

I empower voids with hints of gold

and tasteless words from my tongue.

So you,

To the painting I'll never paint,

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