Shades of Water, a poem by David Garyan

A Street in the Rain, 2020

Aram Arakelyan

Watercolor on Paper

8-1/4 x 11-3/4 (A4)

Shades of Water

To walk by yourself in the rain, without a destination, is at last how it feels not to be bothered. Each drop is the whisper inside a crowded library— precisely the one where every book you want has been checked out, perhaps never to be returned, or better yet lost by the librarian herself. It’s a feeling of complete hopelessness and hope, like finding a wooden cup full of gasoline— though just in the forest you wish to burn down. It's like having an empty glass big enough to contain the ocean but not its waves— so desperate to jump over the edge. When you’re alone, a person might gaze from their window; some may even make eye contact, if only for a second, and even this would be enough— if the city wasn’t so big. Everyone really is a stranger, and those who aren’t point at you like explorers, but in fact they're drifters— vagrants who can no longer walk, yet still look at maps of places they’ve never been. How far will you go to find the darkest cup of whiskey tonight? How long will you sleep just to drink the blackest coffee in the morning?

May 2021