Dominant - The Lulls in Traffic

Violet kaleidoscope closed and eyelids open again

To see leaves pushed by the wind

It’s cold, my breath in the air

Up the stairs to upstairs where we live

I can see past our bricks to other brick buildings

I’d like to grab my marker and draw

Look to my pa

He smiles through his beard

I tug at it

He hands me a green one

Puts a piece of paper up

A painting of his hanging above what I’m drawing

It’s so colorful

I’m standing in his shadow

I scribble

My mom laughs

I must have done something great

Time for a break

I lower my head

Fall asleep with them in my periphery

He wakes up with the KGB knocking at his door

For the pieces he painted and exhibited the week before

He’s hiding artwork under his floor again

Rumors about that circulated back to this particular officer

He’s here to put an end to it

Lock my father away with the rest of his friends in the movement

Life on the line just to prove that the people still have a right

Would I have that kind of courage later down the line when I’m alive?

Hard not be a conspiracy theorist after all your friends have died

Under a subway train or in an apartment fire

Because of things that you believed in and decided to write

Put a brush to the canvas and aspire to fly

Handcuffs on, eyes closed

How could he survive this life?

How could he survive this life?

I open my eyes

Been some time since he left

And even though he brought our family to the US

Where I’m free to express myself

But still a slave to debt

Repeatedly making art for someone else’s financial benefit

Cataloguing his works while listening to my catalogue of words

Reflecting, wondering whether my passion is dwarfed

Am I still in his shadow or have I eclipsed it?

Is the light inside bright enough?

Is it worth fixing?

And who really makes their own decisions?

Am I an artist because I wanted to be?

Or did he give me that ambition?

Doubly supported by my mom and sister

I was tossed into the system but bred by the resistance

That’s an interesting mix then

Putting a price of my passion so I can enjoy living

But it’s catching up

Staring at a screen, I’ve had enough

I’m going through shed after shed of his paintings stacked up

I see the signs

What would he have done?

Trying to add it up