I used to be a painter                                                                         ₄₀Painting was always stopping long enough
when ‘being’ wasn’t yet obligatory,                                                   to forget about time
clay sculptures in a kiln,                                                                     until Grandpa’s western rocking chair
and the words my mother pressed into my forehead                      started sounding like a pendulum to you.
₅before she turned out the lights each night.                                   He’d fill it up with boot scoot tunes
                                                                                                             ₄₅as you oiled your name into the wood,
I used to paint things                                                                          sprawling in the deck splinters,
before colors were                                                                             listening to his weathering winters
bins of silk ribbons and plastic trophies                                            you still see in his face.
collecting dust in my closet.                                                              You haven’t touched that floor in years.
₁₀Those shimmering colors were unbreakable,                                          ₅₀I don’t recall when you became so afraid to bleed.
yet I’d snap crayola by the box, put faces to rocks,
and no one asked me to give them names.

I used to be a painter
of stick figures and movie endings told
₁₅from droughted bristles I forgot to wash.
And I could have bought more;
I could have been a painter;
I could have just gone to the store,
but I would’ve had to walk
₂₀across the sidewalk chalk
I can’t talk to anymore.

Listen, I used to be a painter,
but I think everyone can say that,
before our paintings were the curbside
₂₅and we had somewhere to be.
I was a lot of things
when I wasn’t told to be someone.
I used to be origami and smiling at anyone                    “just because.”
I was riding round trips in paper planes,
₃₀writing condensation love stories ‘til they melted down the window panes.

Listen, or perhaps don’t listen at all because I never did.
But I used to be a painter
before that had to mean a lot of things.
I’d paint questions and leave the rest to the canvas,
₃₅like how to make oats with mom
or the reasons Dorothy left Kansas,
and Painter, I still remember
when you’d texturize the moon,
fill it in with rug burns and static on birthday balloons.