Scraping

Scraping

Scraping the old garage out back --
paint peeling in large snakeskin sheets and
leaving white dandruff paint dust
accumulating on my sweaty forearms.

Underneath the countless layers of paint
hides old wood of chestnut brown
with beautiful grain swirling and
meandering through.

After emancipating such beauty
masked all those years,
I can't bring myself to cover it again.

The garage remains undressed for days --
paint here and there,
bare wood in between.

It pleases me somehow
liberating that old wood,
letting it feel the breeze,
see the light of day.

My neighbor calls across the fence,
"You ever actually going to paint that old garage?"

I relent,
but on the way to the paint store,
I revel in bonding these past few days
with that old garage I had freed.

By leaving the old structure
in a natural state, undecorated,
some vague ghost of the past,

brings to me some feelings of
defiance, independence,
non-conformity, freedom; and

I hide away some vague,
guilty pleasure of knowing
the beauty that lies beneath.