self portrait: van gogh, september 1889

Hello, Vincent Van Gogh.

What is it that makes your eyes so dark

and your eyebrows knit up on the top of your face

and the light blue swirls about your head seem to dance?

is it that your jacket is much too big for you

or it is too hot in the room you are sitting in

or you got distracted and couldn't paint your head

the right shape?

were you looking away from the mirror

and painted all the wrong things?

hello.

where is your other ear?

why do you look at me with such disdain,

Mr. Van Gogh,

as if you know every part of me that i hide inside myself?

are you hiding inside of yourself?

where are you in this painting.

i cannot find you.

i see a man made of shapes and oil

and a loose blue jacket that seems to be strangling him,

Vincent,

why did you leave so soon?

did you mean to do it?

who knows how many more

beautiful pictures you could have painted

that swallowed the world?

who knows if you could have gotten better

and become a great man

and had children who painted just as beautifully as you?

was it meant to be?

did you mean to leave us all behind to stare at pictures of you;

left nothing but dried oil

unblinking eyes

and spirals, spirals, dizzy spirals?