Existentialism (revised)

Existentialism (revised)

"In a certain sense all of us are running." - Kierkegaard


I watch her every morning during breakfast.
Her back against the bark, she sings in the Oak’s shadows
or maybe she talks to a mockingbird who hobbles
in a spray of leaves. I'm not sure, but her mouth is open,
and her cheeks are always pink. It's the same everyday.
This table, this coffee, this circling stir. The same oil painting.

Today I get up and take a closer look.
Her little hand lifts to her mouth
to cover a yawn the size of a pill,
a small pebble. She turns her head
and says, “Did you take my brushstrokes?"
She props to her knees. “The painter
wanted texture, so you could feel me lift from the wall.
My dress should be dappled and the grass, puckered.
Where are my ragged clouds and craggy leaves?
What is a painting without the paint?”

She stands up, and I can see she’s barefoot
and beautiful although her features are smeared.
She climbs the tree, and I tell her to be careful,
that this is insane. Standing on the tip of a twig,
she shouts, “Without paint I am nothing."
I pinch her off the wall, set her on the lip of my coffee cup,
her legs slack over the rim like the strings of two teabags.

“If you were nothing could you do that?” I ask,
scratching an itch on my shoulder. She crosses her arms
which bleed into the pink of her sweater, and she
looks away in a pout, her bottom lip poking out
in a bristle's stroke. I look at the wall where she used to be,
the canvas now draining like an awning after rain,
the Oak tree gliding down in yolk to the floor.

“Why is it running?” I ask her, but she is gone.
Footprints path from the table to the pool of paint.
I felt her lift from the wall, and the painting is gone,
but the painter did his job. So, this is what happens
when you stare at art for far too long.

Outside it’s raining, and I can’t decide if I am the woman
who lost the touch of her skin, or the woman leaving
footprints on the sidewalk, whose face is dripping black.