The Language of Frida by Devi Nina Bingham

Love is an international language

We understand

when it is not reciprocated.

Words are unnecessary

in the language of love.

What is necessary

is to throw aside

wasteful wanderings, 

the mind's Tom-foolery,

and to be present by your attention

to the smallest detail:

the way of the inhale and exhale

as your beloved as they sleep,

how the lines creep across their palm,

and the change of weather

upon their knitted brow.

Curiosity about the other speaks volumes.

Do you care to learn?

I was a fool for love.

I wandered from the golden sun

as the maize of corn

which bursts its sheath.

I fled my mind

so color, form, and expression

could have its way with me

and its day in the sun.

Abandoning all reason,

chasing after the ghost of you

I fled to the sky,

tattered as thin cotton clouds

torn into whisps and scattered

anytime you came around.

I became a lost doll thrown into the corner

when newer dolls arrived.

I made my mouth turn up at the corners,

my red lips infuriatingly full of a distant hope.

Blue paint streamed from my black eyes and dripped

on my blouse which burst into blue flame.

A flame which once knew every turn of your long fingers,

every swipe of your hand

that impatiently brushed away your curly black locks.

The maestro of murals

and his weeping, virginal onlooker

with two limbs who crawled to you.

Dragging myself 

under the pitying gaze of strangers

to stand in your shadow.

And for what? 

Not to watch you work,

that was only a guise.

But to hold a place for myself.

Like a bookmark

stopping time as if I could

as it marched over my body

like Communist revolutionaries.

Invisible infant in my arms longing to be held,

I imprisoned her spirit on canvas

where I could see for myself 

this mystery called love

represented in the reds, blues, yellows and greens,

and in hues of dark and light. 

The thorny crowns of surreal simplicity,

the hot nights and cool sunsets all encapsulated

in what was relegated "modern art."

I smiled inside when asked to describe my art

because I was never a painter. 

I was always the same:

a lover 

who spoke in a language few could understand.