He looks at the world from above,
never feeling it
inside.

He lives with few words,
like bubbles,
traveling all the way up
to the surface:
universe - life
color - light.

Then, his glowing eyes meet
her sick grey skin,
her soul that's been searching
for air she can breathe
without burning.

She's a half hidden
sad, saturated
lizard of pain.

When he touches her
for the first time
he feels the damp, pleasureless world
of a house gecko:
fragile, yet aggressive,
attracted to the porch light
but spending most of her life
hiding until twilight.

And he wants to cover her pain
using paint made of his blood,
mixing hemoglobin
with a quick drying resin.

He tries hard
to stop the substance from decaying,
losing brilliance,
affecting other pigments around.

To seal his work
he covers it
with a fixative medium;
polymers, maybe,
used in flower arranging.

Today, she decorates the room,
trapped and motionless,
a flamboyant object.

And he's devastated by the knowledge
that life is not just color
and blood is not paint.