Van Gogh retired from the world
and painted flowers, not as they were
but as he saw them. In families,
in aching color, whole even when broken.
The world saw something else in those
pictures, and in him. Funny people
paint those funny pictures.
Don’t look too close.
I’m afraid of being seen.
Of becoming a portrait on someone’s wall
that I don’t recognize. Or worst of all,
being shown a mirror.
I plan and analyze and overthink
so that I will never be caught
being human.
And yet when I see van Gogh’s irises,
I don’t see flowers, I see a brain –
raw, disordered, broken, different,
beautiful, powerful.