These Last Months

I put down my paints

And held the graphite rod

Firmly in my grasp.

It was time to make sense of this world of mine

And relinquish the comforting pastel washes

And optimistic sweeps of my palette knife

I longed for simplicity

For the black and white

Boundaries of the carefully

Constructed lines

Clean

Clear Cut

They helped me cope.

In black and white

My world made sense again

I could see the pain on the page

Locked within the lines

Of my colourless cell

And I breathed easier from that night on

The tightness in my chest unfurled

My grip on the page

And I rested there a while,

But black and white becomes tricky too

For you can't navigate the world

When your living in the lines

So I shaded and smudged

Dabbled and dappled

Until that blurred beauty, emerged

In a rainbow of grey graphite

And the overwhelming urge to pick up my paints

And add a splash of colour

Took Hold.