Paint Her Black

Her creativity was born in the sadness of a broken childhood. King and Queen dividing their kingdom and so too dividing her. She chased missing happiness as she wandered the rooms of her mind-palace. She was safe here. This was where she had escaped whenever she could not understand. This was where she retreated when she smelt the fires of oncoming war and desolation. She was to learn that love hurt, but she sought it all the same. She searched for it in every colour on the palette and every mark on the canvas.

As the brushstrokes cohered and the image arose from the canvas, her sadness conveyed a beauty that spoke of love. There was love here in her art and perhaps the hint of happiness if one were to linger a while and see beyond the conflict of colours, to the peace that would eventually result from the battle that she knew she would one day have to undertake were she ever to find the place intended for her in this world.

She was timid in her ferocity. All bark and no bite. She’d seen what harsh words could do. Felt their teeth upon her heart. Their teeth. Her teeth. It all became the same. She’d been unable to cease their war. They had never once stopped and seen her even as she tried with a force of will to make the difference. To be the difference. But she was unheard in her invisibility. Her worth had been lost during the King and Queen’s vicious battles and she had never dared go back to discover it. She feared the threat of more violence. And she was terrified of what she might find were she to look upon herself and that which had replaced the value that she had sacrificed in vain. She had loved them with everything she had and everything she was, but it wasn’t enough. She was never enough for either of them. Let alone to unite them.

To watch her paint would be a delight, a wonderful deception as she appeared to lightly caress the canvas with a carefree abandon. The reality was that she held the brush in a death grip, afraid she may lose her grip at any moment. The truth was that every movement was deliberate to the point of harshness. She criticised her every act even before it entered the world. Fear held her in the balance and it was in that state of fear that she was creative.

Her art was what she gave to the world. Her paintings were her attempt to make amends. She yearned for validation. She pushed as hard as she could to become visible and to be heard. Always searching for the love that she never received when she came into the world full of her own love and intent upon bestowing it eagerly upon the gods that had greeted her.

But they were no gods. They were flawed people who had gone through their own assault course of childhood and never managed to leave that place. A dead end that so many dwelt in, convincing themselves that there was no way back. Making of themselves barren, twisted and fruitless trunks. Failing to grow as they worked upon a cowardice that was self-imprisonment. Never daring to look in the mirror at the absence of their labours. Failing to fail and learn. Instead giving up and staring at the dice of life as though there was a dark trick in the rolling of them.

Waiting. Always waiting. Waiting for someone to arrive in their life and be the god they had lacked at the very start. An all-knowing being who would make everything right and make up for all that lost time too. An impossibility of a person who would wield magic so powerful the infinite would ripple with the force of it and nothing would ever be the same again.

This then was a selfish wish that would destroy worlds if it were ever to be granted. An eye for an eye. A petty revenge for the world that was destroyed from birth. 

And yet, in the madness of falling in love, the King and Queen had thought their wish was granted. That they would be fixed in the melee of the lust and dopamine cocktail they both wantonly supped from. Objectifying each other into something they could never be. Waiting for a miracle that would never come. Ignoring the miracle that they themselves always were. 

Then came the inevitable resentment, recriminations and blame. But not before they had children. Not before they compounded their mistaken belief that one day a messiah would come for them and them alone. A messiah that would not require them to do anything other than receive the gift they had convinced themselves they were entitled to. Theirs was a simple wish. There was very little to it. Including thoughts of how the wish may work and the consequences thereof.

And so she had been born into this doctrine. Into a belief system where she herself was a messiah. A failed messiah. Fallen and worthless. An angel made devil because she had not delivered the magic necessary to bring perfection to an imperfect world. There was no beauty and happiness to be had here. Only more resentment and blame. She was baptised into passive aggression and swaddled in anger. 

This she equated to love.

They were supposed to love her and so they bestowed upon her a twisted definition of what it was to love. They modelled hurt and pain for her and this was the behaviour she adopted and practiced. This was how it was. Forever and ever, amen.

And yet love spoke to her through the creativity that bloomed in that barren place. Love found a way. Comforted her and provided her with solace. It spoke to her constantly. But she would not listen. She was safe in her mind-palace. Its walls kept the pain of love at bay.

This was her fairy tale of emotional unavailability. Her secret. A life performed by an avatar as she hid away and hoped that she would avoid any further pain. Awaiting a happy ending to be bestowed upon her. Sitting in her palace bedroom and painting a world where some day happiness may find her.

When her prince found her, he was all charm. His smiles were promises, even before his lips found hers. Lips that formed words easily. He knew the script well. Finding her was easy. Her longing shone like a trinket in the malicious glow of his magpie avarice. Her longing made her vulnerable. He could work with that. This was his canvas. 

For her part, she found him to be easy company. There was a familiarity here. This suited her. She never questioned whether this was love, because somewhere deep down she knew that it wasn’t. That it couldn’t be. Love hurt, and she’d set up a thousand ribbons tied with bells around her heart to warn her of any impending assault by the cause of so much grief in her life.

She misinterpreted her prince’s behaviour and considered it to be gentle. He did not challenger her. He let her be. He stepped carefully around her. Ever so carefully, so that she never saw the direction they travelled in. His side steps and twirls leading them ever backwards.

But there was always her painting and in this period of new companionship, she was lifted. There was a dream here and she translated it into ever brighter colours. A vibrancy thrummed on the canvas and shook the viewer into a state that neared happiness but quickly became unbearable. There was a beautiful discord inherent in the composition. Her paintings became a warning that she would not heed. 

Something deep within her knew the truth. The truth of her and the conflicted truth of him. This though was the pattern she had been left with. Her parents’ legacy. She was the princess of pain and he was her prince of trauma. This was how it was meant to be. Her dream husband was the nightmare her father had been to her mother. She knew no different in the very bones of her, even as her creativity called to her to turn around and pursue love. Spoke to her of her value and the place awaiting her in the world. Her creativity was an echo of her destiny and its gentle whispers became a defiant scream from the canvas she bled upon.

Her prince saw the evolution of her art and he knew it for the threat that it was. She had made him her muse and she expressed her love for him through the colours on the canvas. She gave everything she had to her art, intuitively knowing that were she to give this to him, he would crush and corrupt it. That he would take and destroy everything she handed to him.

Through her art, she grew. She continued to use this safe space to express her true self and the love that it must give to the world. Only, it was no longer safe. Her prince eyed it covetously. His envy for the love and growth of those around him was fuelled by a hatred nurtured in his own childhood. The failings of their childhoods was all they had in common. That and their inability to grow beyond those early years.

He hated her for the love she was still able to feel and nurture, and so he painted her black. He envied the bright light of her soul and the prism of it that shone onto her canvases. And so he waged a clandestine war to dull her and ever so slowly turn that light of hers out.

She was his. Bound by more than marriage. He had his own belief system and doctrines. He would do with her as he wished. She was a plaything that he would have his fun with and if she ever became too dull, he would discard her and find more colour to bleed out of the world. 

The changes he bestowed upon her were subtle and small, but they were constant and consistent. For every colourful stroke of her brush, he countered with a stroke of darkness. He knew his art just as well as she knew hers. This was the outlet of his creativity and she was his canvas. Little by little and bit by bit, he painted her with his darkness. Smothering her light and drowning out the vibrancy of her colours.

Waiting, always waiting. She was held in yet another trap of her own making. Admirably, she did not want to repeat the acrimony and division of her parents’ split and divorce. This was where she made her stand. Picking the wrong battle because it held the least obvious fear for her. She held onto a state of affairs that was her preference to love. Even as her prince’s gradual campaign of abuse began to hurt her, she told herself that love would hurt more. That this was her choice and now that she had made it, there was no turning back. Another dead end from which she was entirely reluctant to turn from.

Admitting that she was wrong was too much for her. Facing the truth of this dark union would also mean facing the ghosts of her abandonment and she could not bear that. Better to be lonely with her prince than to be alone.

As the world failed around her, the colours faded on the canvas. Her brushstrokes had little conviction and bore no resemblance to her earlier paintings and the former life that she had translated to a troubling beauty. Often, she would sit and stare at a blank canvas and wonder what it was that she should do. At night, she avoided her marital bed in favour for sitting in front of the challenge of the canvas. Hypnotised by an end that had no end. Looking upon nothing and feeling it reflected in her lack of worth. This was what she had waited for and this was what she deserved. She was merely a history repeating itself. Another version of the same dark fairy tale. This was the love she had awaited all her life. She had arrived at her destination and there was no more need for her to express herself upon the canvas. There were no more dreams. Her creativity curled up quietly inside of her as she gave up.

And so the war of attrition continued. Her prince was her dark constant. He would never give up, even if he took everything possible from her. He was a servant of the abyss, come to destroy her. Many years passed as she languished under his twisted spell, and no one knew of her plight as she ventured into the world and smiled a well-practiced beatific smile, said fitting words and made a show of calm. It came easily to her to play the part. She’d been doing so ever since she’d abandoned love and hid her betrayal in plain sight. 

This should have been the prince’s happy ending, and in his fabrication of make-believe, it would have been. But life has a habit of finding a way, and the piper must always be paid. There are other wars being waged and forces that will not be denied. The light seeks out the darkness and illuminates the truth.

Her creativity may have curled up into a ball, but it never gave up. That was not in its nature. Her creativity was the voice of the best part of her. The child that cannot be denied. The source of her light. Her very soul.

And so, when one day there was a sudden, inexplicable rain shower in the midst of a sun-filled Spring morning, she made her way outside. She would never know what compelled her to do so. Almost sleepwalking from her self-imposed exile from the world, she felt the cool raindrops upon her face and for the very first time in a long time she responded with an unselfconscious smile. The rain drops fell upon her and she felt a lightness of being that drew her upwards and away from what had seemed like an eternity of darkness. 

She began laughing. 

She giggled and laughed with a childishness that disarmed her, and as she gave herself over to the physicality of the laughter, she began to spin around and around. Arms outstretched, her dress billowing up towards her hips. She imagined floating upwards into the clouds and losing herself in the skies. Dancing and dancing in a state of bliss and joy. Her eyes closed and she returned to her creative state, and she saw what it was that she should paint. She was gifted with the sight of the art she had pursued for so long and had almost given up on.

Dizzied from the spinning, she fell upon the wet grasses and sighed. Mourning the end of the joyous moment. Then she felt a gaze upon her. She was in a moment made only for her and something compelled her to open her eyes and look towards the source of that gaze. There above her was the arc of the most perfect rainbow she had ever seen. The colours of pure light brought forth to remind the world of love.

She lay and watched this glorious painting on the canvas of the blue sky for an age. Not moving a single muscle. Not daring to blink for fear of losing the sight of it. She took it all in and it changed her. Now she waited, but her waiting was with a single purpose. And as the rainbow faded from the sky, it grew all the more real within her soul. She saw her light and began at last to understand her worth.

Running now to the blank canvas that awaited her, she was illuminated by her renewed purpose. Reaching her destination, she looked upon what once was absence and saw everything. The light and the way.

Before returning to the one thing that was always going to hold her safely and return her to where she belonged, she walked over to the previous fruits of her creativity. She knew what she would find as she uncovered them. Knew in her heart what it was her prince had done to her. 

Each and every canvas was black. She did not need to rifle through them to know that in his vile jealousy he had painted every ounce of her efforts over with the darkness of his envious hate. She smiled and shook her head in a disappointment that she let go of even as it formed. He did not know her. She did not need those canvases. He’d missed the point of her entirely. It was about the process. It was about expressing herself and giving. Besides, she could remove the black paint and reveal the colours yet again. She’d enjoy that. A release and a rediscovery. A renewal that would make her paintings more than they ever were. Whole and beautiful at last.

The blank canvas called to her and so she sat in front of it and let out a long, cleansing breath. All of the colours were a part of the light of love. She would gather the fragments and bring them together so that they spoke of love and the beauty of that love. 

And if love hurt? Sobeit. The absence of love had hurt her far, far more and she’d lost almost everything before she’d woken up to the light she needed in order to be and to grow. She moved towards that light now and she would never stop moving towards it, not even when she was yet again a part of it and no longer a colour yet to find its place on the canvas.