she was something in between kahlo and van gogh. never quite knew which direction she was going.
i'd sit in her studio with paint splattered walls, on a little wooden stool. aquarius never talked much. her words were in the bristles of a frayed paint brush, but i understood.
i knew i was insignificant in her life. what was i, but a stroke of riptide in a canvas of vast oceans?
one of the times i was with her that stood out the most, was in early january. it had been snowing lightly out, and as she sat watching through that large window of hers, her hand automatically painted a winter scene.
she never talked to me while painting. it ruined her artistic process, she told me. but this time was different. aquarius had almost finished a snow capped mountain when she muttered something. quietly, but it was there.
"aquarius?"
"mmm..."
i had stood up and squatted next to her, looking into her hazel eyes. i never understood how such a winter-like person could have such warm eyes.
"i don't understand you, that's why i can't paint you," she had told me. her paint brush tapped the ground. she had stopped painting.
"what do you mean? you're like an impressionist piece, aquarius. i've never known where your thoughts lay."
she sighed, picking up the brush once again, "that's the problem. everything is a poem to you. things are 'like' this, and 'like' that. but some things just are. i don't understand why everything to you is galaxies and body parts."
i stood still. it had never occurred to me that she was thinking like that.
but maybe that's why we never touched hands or held each other in our eyes.
while she read the lines as they were, i read in between.
our realistic and surrealistic faces never really mixed.
and that's probably why the space on the bed next to me is empty nowadays.
