To: The Man Who Painted Me Black and Blue
To the man who painted me black and blue,
I have yet to write to you though you haven’t left my mind for the past two years.
You don’t remember me
but I was your prominent portrait.
Each stroke of your brush was puncturing and diligent
pointed and blissfully chaotic
a beautiful disaster.
You mixed your colors precisely:
red curving around my eye
splattered across the corners of my lips
a luscious black and blue embracing my wrists, neck, hips
and streaked across the inside of my thighs.
Seeking to portray the naked truth
stripping away my clothes,
humility,
humanity.
You wanted your work to speak for itself
and I did.
Not with words
No
those could not be formed.
You stitched your control, your ownership, onto my shirt,
weaved it into my gasping, screaming soul…
silencing my lungs.
You thrust yourself across my canvas
harder,
Harder.
faster faster…
until your hands and demons grew tired
bored of your own creation.
Ripping me apart at the seams
reducing me to broken rubble.
You threw me from your easel to the icy tile where I lay
a discarded canvas
for the next 6 hours motionless
fearful that I was still alive.
You forgot that even paintings exhale
But I did
I ran
I fled
I quit;
I changed colors so many times that I doubt you would recognize me now.
You took these junkyard scraps
Fixed me into a rusted tragedy
Showed me that razors and knives belong to my wrists
left me searching for any glimpse of color
of anything still inside
but I was hollow
nothing to live for
nothing to save.
You drained my blood and body
turning it from a home to a prison.
You extinguished my fire
scattered the ashes.
Diminished my form to a puppet
watching me dance, shutter, wince at every touch
no matter how much I needed and craved a connection.
You taught me to build an indestructible armor around my heart.
And now;
I am a mason.
Creating a new me, a new fire, a new soul.
No longer waiting for my savior to come.
I found her staring back at me in the mirror
strong enough to destroy the undestroyable.
Free of the binds, the chains, the shackles
that dared me never to rise again.
I broke free.
I learned how to inhale again
the wind taught me.
It brushed against me extracting the water from my lungs
filling them with air.
And I saw the beauty in tears
the ripples, the waves, the gentle streams and turbulent falls
all the life beneath the surface.
The wind carried me up the mountain
so the sun could kiss my skin.
And I saw myself for the first time
no longer painted black, blue, dead
but alive, pink and warm.
The wind swirled the leaves in the trees and I whirled along with them.
Inhale.
My lungs inflate with all the beauty that still is
In spite of you
I learned everything happens for a reason
In spite of you
I see the light even in the darkest of places.
Even in your soul.
Because of you I know what the absence of love does to a person
For that is my mission
the reason why I am still here
To find and give love to everyone, everything
Uncontrollably, intensely, unapologetically
To be present.
To be here.
