If My Heart Was a Backpack

On the outskirts of the city a young woman walked gazing at art and viewing it lovingly. Inside her bright red backpack that carried the contents of her life was a painting. The painting was years old and at one point had been her favorite to gaze upon and in fact, she loved it so much she had hooked it to the inside of her backpack and it was now part of her backpack. But time had warn the painting and two other paintings had bled onto the one she carried now, as they slipped from her pack, one when she was not looking and the other floated down a river away from her leaving her grief stricken. The paintings made her less lonely, as if the only purpose she had was the paintings themselves. While she looked for the blue painting she had lost down the river she followed the current to a place where she thought she might find it and in the search she spotted another painting. The painting looked wild, not mild, untamed, and enchanting and she made friends with the painting and the painting made friends with her as she gazes upon it for hours. It's golden hues flashed in the light as she held it tight but the wind came and knocked it from her grasp, into the water and there it floated down the stream. Day after day she wasted away searching for the painting and she found quite to her amazement, the painting had stopped on the shore once more. Her eyes traced the painting's edges and she held it tight once again, this time deciding that the painting was missing something so she took out her brush and in a rush painted in acrylics some strokes of her own. And she loved the painting. She wanted to make it her own but a fishermen came and had said it was his alone and he had created the painting. She begged the painting to follow her but the painting did not until with one final thought, the fisherman said she could have it for the day and as the fisherman walked away sirens blared through the air here and there and everywhere announcing the presence of a tornado and she, like a criminal, attached the painting to her backpack intending to steal it for more than a day and as she made her way across town and the sun went down she could see the tornado drawing near. She thought she could outrun it but she was mistaken and rather shaken when the tornado came upon her and tossed her to and fro like a ragdoll with nowhere to go and in the process the tornado ripped the painting from her pack leaving the original one behind but in the process her backpack was torn and mangled, as if slightly strangled from her attaching the painting to it for the chord attached had ripped a hole in the material and to her horror she found that the painting had been carried away by the tornado to a place where she could not find it and the contents of her pack now were missing and she was wishing that the painting would return. She still had the old painting which she held solemnly and it was still attached but the golden painting had bled onto the colors of the older painting leaving it tinted and not quite as pretty as before. So distressed was she that when she got back home she tossed her pack to the side and carefully unhooked the other painting, carrying it with her in stride and she set it down on her bed and she promised it she'd never let it get hurt again as she mended the colors to look beautiful like before but she still went back searching from shore to shore looking for the golden painting that would not return. It was there she learned , as her tears flowed down her cheeks, that she was probably nothing to the golden painting and even though she had lost almost everything because of the painting the painting had seemingly lost nothing. So with brush in hand she walked on, trying to stand and retreated home where she planned to sew the backpack that was ruined and she became isolated from the world hoping one day the painting would show up on her doorstep and naivity became her as she found herself at the bottom of a bottle. Friends, do not look at the golden painting if you should fall upon it for it is good but it takes its soul with it and you will be no more. Your heart will war and you will become sore from the heartache and pain that surround it. It is better to leave early and never return than to learn the affects of the golden painting and have your backpack torn apart.