Incomparable

2020

He painted a portrait of his mother:
Myriads of irregular shapes
coloured by prismatic acrylics
frolicking on thin paper in excitement 
from using his new paint set.

His chest swelled at the ostentatious tints
along with his mother’s puffery.

But his sister burst into a harsh, derisive chortle 
when she espied the portrait blu-tacked on
the refrigerator door.

Compared to her framed and refined 
brushstrokes that adorned all the walls of their house,
his art was only unwanted graffiti,
a dejected picture inferior in the background. 

He glared sourly at the Mary Cassatt of the family.
She knew he was no Van Gogh or Claude Monet,
just dashed hopes of expressionism and surrealism.

A Picasso in the warm-up zone.

One of the reasons why Natalie Fu (Class of 2023) writes is to explore the uncharted territories of her imagination. She enjoys ideating and daydreaming about potential story plots in her free time.