Photo Poetry | The Last Colors I See

Stylish cafes are generally untrustworthy.
Paintings hang on the walls, the lighting is gentle, and the chairs are strangely high.
They are cleverly designed to make one's own life look dowdy by comparison.

The paintings are silent.
Yet, despite their silence, they wear a look that suggests they know me well.
The world inside the frame is so perfectly ordered,
that my own life looks strangely cluttered.
Ah, I realize now that I am jealous of 'things that are ordered'.
Jealousy is unsightly, but perhaps there is still some salvation in being able to notice it.

The coffee is black.
Its taste changes every time I take a sip.
That is because my own heart changes on its own.
On bitter days, the bitterness intensifies.
On sweet days, I doubt the sweetness.
Is this proof that I have become an adult,
or have I simply lost the energy to remain honest?

The connection between life and art,
is actually simple.
Living well is not the work of art itself,
but rather, color remains in the parts where we failed to live well.
In fact, color bleeds more deeply into our failures.
Success is usually white, while failure is excessively vivid.

Tears have colors, too. The idea that they are transparent is a lie. Tears of frustration smell of iron and are a slightly rusted red. Tears of resignation are a pale gray, heavy with all the words that could not be spoken. If you look at the color of the tears someone has shed, you can tell what kind of effort they have made. Because effort, before it yields results, is something that makes you cry somewhere along the way.

I suddenly wonder what it is that I will see at the very end.
It won't be a masterpiece, or a night view,
or someone else's success,
but perhaps something very small.
The warmth of a fingertip.
The light outside the window.
The ring left by a cup someone set down.

If what I see at the end is something so trivial, I might find a little salvation in that.
I want to believe in quiet colors rather than a flashy ending.
May the last thing I see be a gentle color.