museum

on quiet, rainy nights
and blazing sunny days
I open the museum.

I stroll through the gallery
gazing at every portrait
familiar, yet foreign.

I grab a bench
and a drink.
I sit.
I stare.

I remember painting this-
I remember every brushstroke,
each paint and pigment used.

I remember each bump and groove
as I reach out,
sliding my hand across the aging canvas.
And yet-

the face in the portrait.
the expressions, the emotions-
no longer mine.

visages battered and brined
in a storm long since passed
now sepia stained and weathered by time

sometimes I think to burn it down
to strike pristine new matches
and incinerate the old rot

but. it is good to come here, sometimes.

it is good to paint portraits
and have somewhere to hang them

to take comfort in the familiar
becoming very much
unrecognizable.