I Paint, and I Draw
When I was five,
Mama said I should try drawing.
Draw shapes and figures,
Train my motor functions,
"It's all good for you growing up," she said.
And so I did.
I bought a set of crayons from the store beside my house, and started with the clouds,
Light blue dotted with streaks of orange.
And then came the sun,
A circle of red that blinded even me.
The last was the deep green background,
A hill of green,
Waiting to be crafted, to be designed,
Waiting to be erased.
When I was ten,
Mama said I could go join the art club.
"If you like it, then try it.
Join something that you like.
You're spending your own time after all." She said.
And so I went.
This time, I didn't just start with the sky.
With the deep stains of graphite, I drew out the outline of the world beneath me - the sky, the sun, the grass, and even the tiny wild flowers that bloomed eternally.
This time, the sky was painted a dark blue, no longer filled with streaks of orange, instead splashes of white clouds floating past our heads.
The grass was still the same ugly green, and as for the flowers -
Well for the flowers, I couldn't draw them. Time was up, and the lesson had ended.
And so they stayed there, torn between fiction and reality, unable to move and unable to stay.
Seven years later, the same drawing lies on the bookshelf in my room, still untouched,
Still unfinished.
When I was seventeen,
I thought I could try something new.
Something unique, something that others have perhaps never done before.
Maybe paint the world on a new canvas,
No longer just restricting myself to paper,
To ink,
To paint,
And to graphite.
I started with the flowers this time,
Finally daring to paint them red as they bloomed in front of me,
No longer an ugly skeleton that carried no weight.
I continued with the sky,
Splashes of blue and white and orange,
Trying,
And failing,
To wash away the sins of the world,
And the marks of eternity.
I wanted to add in the dark green of grass,
Using them to mask away the fading redness of these flowers.
But I couldn't,
At least not anymore.
And when mama came to knock on the bathroom door,
Asking me to hurry up and finish taking my "goddamn slow" shower,
I smiled,
And faded into the masterpiece that I had created.
Copyright © Winddin Blue | Year Posted 2017
|