Art as an end to alienation

Whoever said that opposites attract
might perhaps have tried to brush
a you beside a me;
to place these contradictory hues together;
building an image --
or is it a life --
of two conflicting forces.

Yes, this magnetism is intense,
but if I allow you to bleed into me
or myself to bleed into you
we both will fade
into brown -- or is it gray?

Whatever -- the end result,
without this careful rope that separates,
that clarifies the boundary,
would be a slow and sad disintegration
into dark and dull and loss of light.
And so I use my paintbrush as an anchor
holding us apart, and yet together.


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