We were both in your
room. You were painting something, on an empty stretch of bone-white
canvas. I was sprawled across your
bed, reading a book of
Sylvia Plath poems - all
spit and
bile and
fear. The stereo was on, and we were listening to...I don't remember. Something pulsating, and
wordless. And it would get louder, as if it were trying to distract me from the moment. From us, together, in a room, filled with energy and
imagination and each other. Every time I would glare at the stereo the music would soften again. Maybe, I thought, just maybe, I've
finally snapped.
So I put the book down, and stretched out against the down pillows. The first thing I saw, when I opened my eyes, was you. Totally oblivious; caught in your own world. You were being an artist, in the truest sense of the word. It was like watching a dancer - your hands had minds of their own, and they flashed across the emptiness and brought colors to the void. Your eyes were focused on something beyond the paint, something that you wanted to reveal to more people than just yourself.
It was beautiful. Not the painting, because at that moment all I could discern were blotches of color. Just you, being totally and utterly you for nobody but yourself.
I only see you like that once in a blue moon, you know. Because every other time that I manage to spend even minutes with you, you're worried about someone or something. You care too much.
I stood up, moved to the stereo, and unplugged it. The music had been inching up in volumne again, jumping up and down and trying to get my attention. The drum'n bass were replaced with the soft hiss of paint dipped horse-hair across synthetic fabric, and the beating of my own heart, in my ears. I came up behind you, just to be closer, because the silence pressed in on me and maybe you, though I don't know if you felt it or not.
You were painting me.