SPARK

Jay Young Gerard

Inspiration Piece

Self-Infliction

multi-media (oils, pastels, collage, canvas affixed to foam board)

Lisa Nielsen

Response

Glistening Like Whitewash

The molten lava of your ambiguous soul reaches across
the counter to tell me
I have just the right amount of torment and
beauty to keep you engaged.

And here we are:
another night,
another game of charades.
like a director in a worn out play, you speak over me,
giving me time to crawl out of my skin
and tiptoe along the iridescent trail my shadow left behind.

I dream by not dreaming
wish by not wishing and
my heart clots, throbbing like damage.

The repulsion has always been rampant, and
the pretending will haunt me, but
you stand proudly –
another one wrestled in
another one out of the game