Paper

There is a lot of poetry around me from the past few days. It has its effects. I had previously published four rhyming lines and called it a poem. Here are many not-rhyming lines. I still call it a poem-

The brushstrokes keep falling on the canvas

Harsh, rough, jagged strokes,

like the edge of a broken window pane

Tender like a dew drop rolling down the broken glass

So sure, so confused

waiting for the next epiphany to strike

Epiphany after epiphany

He makes a ladder out of them and climbs it

building each rung as he goes up

The water, the colours mix under his command

A bit more of yellow here, some more water there

Red and blue make purple...

He is the creator and the destroyer

and the preserver of it all

The small paper universe

What shall I create? He thinks

Something eternal, timelessly beautiful, but gruesome too

For is there beauty if there is no ugliness?

A woman? A breathtaking landscape? My own Monalisa?

Brushstrokes keep falling on the canvas

More unsure now. Less confident

He struggles on, struggles to escape from his pitiful insignificant life,

escape into something ethereal he built himself.

Like cocaine.

The more he tries, the harder he falls

Its natural, isn't it?

And like a madman he rushes on the canvas again,

only to spoil it further.

And then, the final epiphany strikes,

Harsh, rough, jagged, but tender at the same time,

'It is only paper'

And the beautiful universe crumbles down, not in front of his eyes

but inside his heart.

....And the brushstrokes cease to fall.