Acrylic

I take a step back and look at my canvas with inches of acrylic paint piled on as a result of trial and error. Something is off. Are the tones mismatched? Why is it unbalanced? Do I no longer like the subject matter? I bite at my nails, I bounce my leg, my eyes dart from corner to corner. Did I do something wrong? I inhale and fixate on my palette. Charcoal Gray, Crimson Red, Canary Yellow. Beautiful, but wrong to me. My hands open and the colors drop to the floor. I rummage through the additional shades and pull out the one that is identical to the canvas. The canvas I haven’t seen in years. The canvas riddled with subjective mistakes. The canvas that endured a lifetime of experimentation. I untwist the cap, dip the brush directly inside, and slather the canvas. Though the acrylic grew thicker and the texture of my previous strokes remained, I was starting new.