Antonia V Showering
Your Touch
What a mess. At one point it looked as if it was going to be perfect. Can we rub back to where we once were? Or keep going until this is resolved? I want to feel something when I look at you. I want other people to feel it too. Once fresh with a lyrical touch, now you appear overworked and muddied. A light wash seems to help you relax, along with various types of spirits. I think about you often and look at your photograph when we are apart. I even talk about you, not just your appearance but everything: what inspires you and what you’re about. Your fragile surface reveals fragments of histories and experiences undergone. Traces of previous decisions become visible. Suddenly I’m celebrating your mistakes. Happy accidents become defining features. Abstract thoughts and emotions are slowly made tangible and you are finished. My name is tattooed on your back along with the year you felt complete. Maybe we won’t see each other again in the flesh and this saddens me, after all; what a journey we had. As you drive off in the van I give a half smile as in some ways it means we succeeded.
2018
Shyness
Shyness is momentary.
When it’s awkward, blushing head returns – we can’t help but envy our former selves. We trick our memories into believing we were once hilarious raconteurs and now even a smile feels strained and unnatural. You repeat answers in your head before talking aloud, yet words still come out muddled. Internally, landslides crash down but in the room it is barely noticed.
Like always, confidence will return. For now, enjoy your silence.
2020
Ode to Casper
You love eating more than anyone,
For pears and melons you would run.
Every other weekend I would travel 2 and a half hours,
To lie by your aged body filled with healing powers.
People sometimes laughed at your old man smell,
I wish I bottled some and at Selfridges it would sell.
Sorry for ignoring you a little towards the end,
If I owned a time machine that's what I would amend.
If you could talk you would tell me not to regret,
And to enjoy being a young, silly coquette.
Our friendship was much like the two in Benjamin Button,
Both starting as lambs but suddenly you were mutton!
If reincarnation exists, will I be your dog next life?
Or perhaps I might get extra lucky and be your wife.
Thanks for being a cherub from day zero,
I won't forget you ever, my guardian angel hero.
2013
Je t'aime, 2018, oil on canvas, 60 x 60 cm
Endless Search, 2020, oil on linen,
100 x 75 cm
untitled, 2013, oil on paper