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Of Healing & Shadows
Watercolor, chalk pastel, and ink on paper, July 2020
Flash fiction below written for a talent showcase
See the sped-up painting: https://youtu.be/QfI4RTf2hsA
On some days, the lines that make up the reality of you feel tentative and infirm. A nervous hand holds the pencil of morning, and you slowly become dimly aware of the stiff curve of your neck, a sloping shoulder, your unfurling hand. Those days, you hope the hand will forget to fill in the rest of you, that maybe you’ll be allowed to remain a chaotically happy and powerful anti-scribble in another plane of existence reached by luck and perhaps a bit of help from a nighttime tea that’s a little too strong to soothe. Alas, the new day demands its due behind the blinds and you are filled into blurry, inescapable awareness, the jitteriness of your lines coalesced into an unseen shadow at your chest.
Full of color yet undefined, you yearn for light and an unnamed, even more disembodied something. You take to the hills in the early fog and find hope in the cloud that possession of your hair, but unfortunately, the very shadow that presses on your heart spills out of your feet and never falls behind. It is at a loss that you pant silent laughter at the sight of rabbits starting the day along the end of your rope, but in kinship you still your spirit and soften your steps, so that they never interrupt their tranquil repast. Their noses twitch their gratitude after you.
The sweat drop diving down your neck names what roosted at the tip of your tongue, and you drive to the deftest surgeon you know. The waves of her crash before you in chalcedony and teal, the sea foam souls of lovelorn mermaids lacing over the expanse of her. Her softer chuckles trill upon your freezing, wet feet, and you walk further in. You’re well aware the worst wounds are too deep to sting when you step into the salt water. They’re deep enough to only make themselves known when your eyes pay surprised and mournful tribute to the infinite, and the expanse responds by reaching into the heart of you and tossing aside the shards of shadow you otherwise insist on holding to your own heart. This gentle excoriation is what you seek and you float, face upturned to the anodyne of a cloud-speckled sky.
Once she’s done, the ocean invariably rolls you onto the shore, and though the shards have regrouped and join your feet anew, it is now after you are cleansed and empowered that you are able to look the darkness that fluttered your heart into its eyeless, you-shaped silhouette and invite it over for tea.
Contact Me if you’re interested in buying this artwork