Control

I think in the shower and take vacations in pints of ice cream. If my mind gets caught in webs of thoughts as I try to fall asleep at night I turn on my other side to swipe them away. The oddest dreams tend to follow me. I set a train of thought in motion in hopes of dreaming of those particular things or people but my dreams never end up there.

I don't think I have a good melodic voice but I sing beautifully in paint. Wide strokes of glossy bright paint that have the consistency of melted bubble gum in July swipe across white canvases. There is no time when I paint, reality collapses and expands in waves like the heaving chest of a living animal. Heavy fumes hang in the air around my work and leak out of metal tubes. My hands turn into rainbows, but I try not to let my clothes. I wonder which makes my paintings, my hands or my heart.

I am always trying to make sense out of everything; to look far into things I can't yet see. I wonder what it is I can control. I wonder if control is an illusion like the ones I paint or a mirage like half-forgotten dreams. Does it exist, or does it appear to exist?

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