unease

fray

Swipe. Dip. Stroke. Brush. Pause. Inhale. Exhale.

The rhythm was meditative, almost sacred. But God knows I wasn't praying. I laughed at the thought – a dry, crackling sound that bounced off the barren walls of my studio apartment. Prayer was for those who still had hope, or at least the energy to delude themselves. Me? I had paint. And solitude. Lots of solitude.

The canvas in front of me was a mess, a chaos of colors and shapes that only made sense to me. And maybe not even to me. But that was the beauty of it- art didn't need to make sense. It just needed to be felt. And I felt every stroke, every blend, every damn hue that I smeared onto that canvas. It was a reflection of my mind – fragmented, colorful, and endless.

Sometimes, I fancied that the paint understood me better than any human ever could. People were so quick to judge, to label, to shove you into neat little boxes. But the paint? It just flowed, free from prejudice. It didn't care that my mind raced at a million miles an hour (or that some days I couldn't even drag myself out of bed let alone brush my teeth or shower). It didn't care about my moods that swung like a pendulum on steroids.

The only time I felt a flicker of something that wasn't numbness or rage was when my brush touched the canvas. It was a sad and cliche kind of therapy, but it was mine. I'd lost friends, lovers, even family over the years – casualties in a war with myself- but the canvas stayed. Silent. Patient. Never judging.

My phone buzzed somewhere within the forgotten lands of my apartment. Probably my sister, checking in to see if I was still alive. Or maybe my landlord, reminding me that rent doesn't pay itself. I didn't care to check. They were part of a world I had left behind, a world too loud, too fast, too... real.

I dipped my brush into a pool of crimson. It was a violent, passionate color, the kind that screamed when you looked at it. Perfect. I needed something to scream for me. As the brush kissed the canvas, I felt a jolt, a connection. This wasn't just paint. It was a piece of my soul, raw and unfiltered. It was me, in all my chaotic, beautiful disaster.

–

I hadn't left my studio apartment in weeks, maybe months. Time had become as abstract as the smears of paint on my canvas. My memory suffered as well- I'd forget how I got from point A to point B and end up wandering the living room. Waking in the depths of the night, I'd find broken mugs once filled with wine shattered on the floor.

The world outside was just a distant hum, like a forgotten dream. I preferred it that way. Real people were exhausting, always wanting something - a smile, a conversation, a piece of your soul on a plate. My paintings never demanded anything; they just existed, beautifully indifferent.

I picked up a strand of my hair that had fallen onto my palette. It was a nice shade, almost the same color as the burnt umber I liked to use. On a whim, I snipped a lock of hair with my paint-scarred scissors and mixed it into the paint. Why not? It hungrily, no, greedily, swallowed everything I gave it - my time, my sanity, my every waking thought. The canvas was indifferent yet demanding. A price I was willing to pay to have a silent confidant to my eccentricities.

My studio apartment was a reflection of my inner world: chaotic, cramped, and splattered with the remnants of my failed attempts at making something meaningful. The windows were smudged and coated with paint, the lights kept dim, and the city a blurry backdrop as if it had decided to keep its distance. I couldn't be bothered to go out and buy blinds, a problem that seemed to worsen my paranoia of the imagined eyes in the windows.

An easel stood in the corner, my latest work in progress looming over the room like a silent judge. Canvases, some blank and some half-finished, leaned against walls stained with the ghosts of colors I had thrown in frustration. The air smelled of turpentine, sweat, desperation.I had moved here with dreams as big as the city skyline. Dreams nurtured by an aunt who believed in the romantic notion of a struggling artist. She funded this little escapade into the bohemian lifestyle, her checks arriving with notes filled with encouragement that I never read. I couldn't bear to. They were a reminder of everything I hadn't achieved, of every canvas that remained unsold, stacked against the wall like tombstones.

--

I wasn't always like this. There was a time when painting, drawing, creating, brought me joy and a sense of purpose. Now, it was just a means of survival, a way to justify my existence to my aunt, to myself. But even that was becoming a challenge. My paintings were missing something, a spark, a piece of my soul perhaps.

That night, as the city hummed its lullaby of distant traffic and sirens, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling. I had long given up on the notion of sleep- my antipsychotics had stopped sedating me months ago. The shadows seemed to dance, forming shapes that only I could see. My thoughts drifted to the paint on my palette, the hair now a part of the chaotic mixture. Maybe it was time to add something more. Something real.

Something alive.

I imagined paintings were changing. They seemed to whisper to me at night, voices as soft as a lover's breath, telling me secrets in languages I didn't understand. I wasn't scared. Why would I be? They were a part of me, after all. Or maybe I was becoming a part of them. Sometimes, in the blur of colors and shapes, I saw faces. Not human faces, but something else, something ethereal. They smiled at me, and I smiled back. It was our little secret, a private world where I was the creator, the destroyer, the muse.

I never considered myself a religious person, but in those moments, I felt like a god. It was exhilarating, and terrifying. Maybe that's what real art is supposed to feel like - like standing on the edge of a cliff, your heart pounding, not knowing whether you'll fly or fall. Maybe thats what life is supposed to feel like.

But that was a thought for tomorrow. Tonight, I needed to find rest, to escape into the darkness where the whispers of my own mind were the only sound. Tomorrow I would paint again, and maybe this time, I would find what I was looking for.