the love affair of the artist and the writer
Artist:
She loved sketching in that crisp new book of her’s
Delightful girls
Faces she never had the pleasure of witnessing
Pristine angles that didn’t exist, but felt much more consoling to her sharp eyes
Those pages were filled to every corner, every grain with respectable shading
Eyes with a comforting glint of hope
Full lips with an alluring desire
She created the world she wanted to see
one that was beautiful
Impeccable
One that had manifested into her view of “correct”
Writer:
She patiently waited for the moments in which she scribbled in that burdened notebook of
hers
A quick tale, recounting the faint smile of that girl she always came into brief contact with
on her morning bus ride
Words that stung her tired eyes as they left the thin lips of blithe young girls
She exhausted book after book, permeating the once stiff, clean pages with the pain of
reality
Feelings she exposed from the most frightening edges of her mind
Nearly illegible lead marks splattered with stray tear drops
She documented the chaos she accepted as her daily routine
A life that was unpredictable
Impermanent
Her pencil imprinting every bruise that haunted her worn knees from nights in which she
hit rock bottom
The artist & the writer:
She still drew her nonexistent girls
She began to fill pages upon pages with thoughts of this girl
There was a kind of art that manifested between the two of them when they were
together
But she went home to draw soft plump lips
And she went home to write poems about the laughter lines on the girl's face
She never told her she drew
She never read her any of her poems
She manipulated herself into something she hoped worthy enough for the girl to draw
She never really saw the girl’s poems as making her much of an artist, much of anything
For, she thought the girl’s words too imperfect, her letters too indefinite, her stories
lacking the desire she craved
And...she became much too afraid
Artist:
She kept searching for something
A flawless subject for one of her immaculate drawings
Something to satisfy the standards she had built up for her world over the years
But she found herself angered when the models she cycled through had a line out of
place
A slight hinge in their airy laughter
An indent on their soft plump lips
Writer:
She struggled to find words to tell the story of the girl
Afraid her love might disapprove if the syllables did not flow with grace
If the curves of her letters were not smooth enough
She found herself angered when she wrote nothing she loved
Nothing that she could be proud of
Words that did not do anyone justice
Artist:
She doesn’t draw much anymore
Writer:
She writes more now, but never about the girl
The artist & the writer:
Their angles are jagged and inconsistent nowadays
Their words are harsh, never expressing the intent they tried to fill them with
Artist:
She refuses to understand
She goes back to drawing those faces she will never find
Writer:
She embraces the imperfection of understanding
She decides it is time to write her truth
Writer:
In time, she finds a way to make their truth beautiful