I Don't Wish To Paint Like You

I’ve never really been a painter.

You see, in my head

the word "painter" sprawls

in acrylic shades of a colouring palette.

And I could never quite find inspiration in colours.

It’s hard to, 

in a colourblind world

that sees skins

as pastel shades.

I paint what I see, 

how I see, 

in tinges and hues

of monochrome.

The colourblind call it

black and white.

Binary

is a convenient illusion

for the mathematically challenged.

I, though, call it

dwelling in greys, 

and the occasional burnt sienna.

I don’t sketch outlines.

I don’t reach for erasers.

I scribble.

I splatter. 

Blank page. 

Blank canvas. 

Bending lines. 

Pushing boundaries. 

A lot like 

the becoming of life;

no rough work,

no undo button,

no emergency exits.

But, 

what about 

getting it right

you ask. 

Right

isn’t the absence of wrong.

It is arriving

in spite of it.

In a world

that wants canvases

to look like photographs,

and photographs

to look like augmented realities, 

I am only

scribbling flawed faiths

and idiosyncratic incongruities

with absolute disrespect

for grammar.

How dare I call myself a painter?

When all I’ve done

is refuse

your colours, 

and still

paint.