The Final Stroke

Thousands have yet to find it
What it was, I still don’t know
Many had called to grace my work
Who’d have thought my gallery would steal the show?

Diaries on canvas
Would they reveal my darker side?
And hanging upon these walls
The facade I’d left to hide

Forced into the limelight
A cancerous thought I’d ran from for years
Worried sick my family’s fate
Embellished everything I’d held in dear
From my room I splashed violence
And colors meshed in moods
A wet brush choreographed my dreams
A medium only I could find to groom

Dusting webs from my frames
Could they read inside my mind?
Could I hide behind these walls?
They think I’ve answered life’s questions
I’d broken through it all

The townspeople they stood and cheered
As I moved through the main street
In a carriage pulled by the horse of lords
My offering sheathed in drapes of gold
The king peered down and stared
At my greeting, shivering informal
What I had carried was not just a sweep
Of the brush
But a vision the king
Himself had held.

The doctor’s messenger held on
To a note clutched in his hand
Was it wrong to live in highness?
Greed was not a life prioritized
This fever of scarlet
Washed colors from my eyes

To this day the world will hold
In its heart the memory
Of a man pushed by the right to wish
What many grant themselves each day
Look close and you will feel
The emotion of this mortal
Who in his final moments of sight
Had canvassed a vision of life