I am an artist.

I draw with color.

Flowing watercolors stream

Down my cheeks from under my eyelids.

Messy oil pastels spiral from my fingertips.

Thin pencil lines trace my lonely

Footsteps through town.

Colorful chalk dust puffs

Into the air when I flip my hair

Charcoal-smeared footprints show my twisting

And winding path through life.

 

I draw with words too.

Adjectives and adverbs color outside

The lines of my literature homework.

Complicated strings of words form an aura

Around my shoulders, stirring restlessly as I walk.

Participles, prepositions, and predicate nominatives clink

In time with my sparkling jewelry.

Sentence after sentence flutters gently

Onto the waiting page from my beating heart.

My artist hands can use the keys on a keyboard as easily

As they can use the colors on a palette.

 

But my art doesn’t only show on paper.

It appears on faces too.

It can draw on your emotions

And bring hidden feelings to the surface.

I want to make viewers chuckle,

to make readers sniffle or gasp in surprise.

That’s the art I like to create.

 

Colorful interpretations of figures in pastels warm

A chilly soul on a windy, bitter day.

Grim sketches may send one’s mind into despair,

Only to be rescued by a hint of saving

Color in the distance.

Still lives of household objects--a flower, a shoe--display

The beauty of everyday life.

Charcoal portraits of grinning, gleeful toddlers strain to leap

Off the page right into the hearts of onlookers.

 

Inconsequential details create fairy-tales

In the minds of curious readers.

Witty memories set to rhyme

Make even grown adults giggle like children.

Exciting tales of family adventures

Send readers on meaningful journeys of their own.

Images hiding in lines of type surprise

The audience when they least expect it.

 

I use the art I create on paper to make better art on faces.

Whether I cause looks of appreciation or hesitation,

If it makes you thoughtful, grateful, or hateful,

It’s still art.

And I’ve created it.