Her future was painted in bold strokes
With a brush wide as my hand
Finger-drawn like a child would
Smooth curves joined
To make a straight-edged skyline
Green for grass and blue for sky
And red for love, turning the whole world pink
Beneath the blocks of color
Rough canvas stretched over a factory-perfect frame
Polished to perfection, stained light for aesthetics

In a dimly remembered yesterday
I pieced together fragments of wood
And stretched a piece of paper covered in words
The paintbrush swirls uncertainly
Over spidery text
Purple and silver streaking the sky and
Blue and gold coloring the twilit fields
In the corner
The sun is red as blood, and darker than shadows
An uneven sphere filling the night

My future
Is made of shaky strokes and
Uneven wood
Hers marches
Into a carefully scripted tomorrow
Layers of paint wiping away the color of white
Beside each other
They are
Two different worlds but the same horizon
And she looks at mine and calls it art