A Silver Lining

Rapid strokes fill the length of the canvas, the colours mixing in a way an amateur would marvel at. I, however, find it to be less than perfect.

Dipping the paintbrush in the reds and oranges on the palette, I try to compensate for the lacking mountains by brightening up the sunset in the background. I end up messing it up further, the greyish hue of the mountains mixing with the sun’s yellow, creating a new shade of disgusting.

I throw the paintbrush and palette on the wall opposite me, kicking the legs of the easel. As the wall gets a smear of the disgusting colour and the canvas falls on the ground with a loud thump, I sit down on the floor with a huff, my head in my hands. I look at my hands stained with paint, now having transferred to my face.

I hit the edge of the bed, ignoring my throbbing knuckles.

Maybe a day of painting was my worst idea yet.

Maybe I should have just stuck to pottery.

The memory of earth stuck in my hair as I desperately tried to wash it out flashes before my eyes, and I push the idea away.

Maybe it’s time for a change.

******

“Marissa?”

The beads rattle to the ground, slipping from my hands all at once.

The thread lies limp on my lap.

I pull at my hair, trying to break it just like the beads that had fallen out of the thread’s fragile grasp.

Elliot enters the room, and gets on his knees in front of me, trying to provide some consolation. I push him away, my head in my hands again, not unlike yesterday.

“Why doesn’t anything work? Why do I have to fail at everything?” I scream out, and Elliot’s hands squeeze mine.

“Calm down Marissa, stop overreacting. Everyone doesn’t need a hobby, people can live just fine without it,” he says, and a spark of anger ignites inside me.

“Out.”

“But Marissa I just –”

“Get out!”

He gets up, a frown on his face, which suddenly changes to a confident smirk.

“I’ll leave now, but you’ll just come running back. Like you always do,” he says and pushes the door open.

I make a move to throw my mangled canvas at him, and he runs out in fear.

I love it when they run.

******

This time, when the calligraphy pen breaks and the ink flows out, seeping through the paper, I don’t scream.

I don’t scream even when the ink starts to drip on my dress.

I had anticipated it, from the moment I had picked up the weapon, famous for being mightier than a sword.

It was also equally held in high regard for the ink stains it left and the sheer messiness of its careless use.

The inkpot stands untouched on the corner of the table, almost gloating at having been left alone.

I decide to teach it a lesson, but as I move to break it, I realize that there is a worse punishment, the best punishment.

The ink flows out, and I watch its motion with fascination, my papers and other supplies slowly bathing in a jet-black pool.

I put my hands in the ink, watching as my hands get stained, and decide not to wash it off, to show Elliot that I had tried.

******

My shoulders are slumped as I sit at the dining table, pulling off pieces of the banana cake and putting it in my mouth.

Elliot just left in a rush, his left hand nursing the right, which was red and swollen.

I didn’t expect him to actually take the tray out of the oven without wearing oven mitts.

He had wanted to prove something to me but had instead proven something else.

He had proven exactly how much of an idiot he was, and how much of an idiot I had been for not realizing it earlier.

I had broken up with him immediately, cursing myself for being so blind. As he tried to get a piece of the cake I had painstakingly made, I slapped at the hand that wasn’t burnt and threatened to burn it if he stayed for a second longer. That had been enough to remove his presence from my kitchen, and my life.

I eat the banana cake, slowly peeling off the blackened edges and stuffing it into my mouth, welcoming the gagging I had anticipated.

The cake soon begins to taste salty, as the tears I had forbidden from leaving the confines of my eyes soon begin to run out.

I miss him already.

But he had done nothing but discourage me.

Suddenly a string of words flits in my mind.

Grabbing a pen and paper, I make the words visible.

How could I have been so blind,

To have not seen through your illusion?

How could I have missed the signs,

That were in always in my line of vision?

******

Maybe this time I found a permanent hobby.

This time, I’m not failing terribly. Because there are no rules.

Some people call this ‘poetry’, I call it ‘my heart’.

Some others call it ‘verse’ while I call it ‘my soul’.

There is nothing better than putting emotions to thoughts, putting

thoughts to words, putting ink to paper.

There’s nothing better than hiding my life’s secrets with metaphors, hiding my feelings and exes in imagery, hiding my stories and experiences in similes.

Nothing can compare to writing it all down and having it rhyme perfectly, having a few lines rhyme with a few others or having none of them rhyme at all.

The thrill of reading it out loud and giggling with pure happiness, knowing that no one would recognize the truth behind the veil of flowery words, knowing that the person reading it wouldn’t even realize that it was about them, knowing that they would praise my words and later brood about its vague meaning.

Pouring my heart out without giving anyone an inkling is more therapeutic than I had ever realized.

Maybe everything I had tried and failed at, all the broken pots and wasted canvases and paints and ink, all of it had led up to this.

This silver lining in the clouds crowding my mind had finally appeared.

******