Red Pencil Phase

Early sketchbooks,

overflowing with drafts and dreams,

connoisseur collectors items.

They study my work,

discovering the loose red underlines of

places, nudes, and faces.

Label the sudden transition

“the red pencil phase.”

Fancy my art in the Louvre,

fragments of my mind

exposed to the adoring public,

as I lie decomposing.

“red pencil phase.” Ha!

It’s a hardly ingenious idea

I shouldn't pride myself on rediscovering the wheel

and overhype the life

which waits to unfurl under my anxious feet.

There is danger in feeding this childish fantasy

of celestial achievement.

To flower into the grace of a rare orchid

is pedestrian dream of every kid

aging away like a common daisy.

We know what I are,

but not what we may be.

My withered self looks into the past

and sees the budding shoot of verdant green,

reaching for the sun.