He told me
to make art every day
he was so achingly beautiful
that he was the only art
I ever hoped to understand
His words were delicate fingertips
smoothing rich clay into sensuous curves
and it was the only pottery
I ever let graze my palms

He was everything.

When his paint chipped away from our canvas
it revealed itself to be starving gracelessly
clothed in sullen white bones, stripped raw
the blankness of it was dizzying
I judged it harshly for its nakedness
and resented it cruelly for its stoicism

I attacked it with emerald slashes of anger
tears, in pastel pinks and yellows
stabs of deep purple and bleeding indigo
until it displayed every thorn I'd wished to forget
and they were somehow less present in my sides
and on the canvas they were
still sharp but also
beautiful

I expelled some of the roses, too
onto my ankles where I wrote poetry
with words like "forever" and "beauty" and "love"
I didn't know exactly what they meant
but they made me very
very happy

And now he is not everything
and he is not a thorn
He is a face,
still beautiful,
among many in a mural on my wall
that reminds me of the richest pottery
his words ever crafted:
make art everyday.

I don't know exactly what art is but
he was not the only art
he was not the only artist
I don't know exactly what art is
but I swear
I made it everyday
and I swear
It's just...
God, it's just
Everything.