comfort the disturbed

Creating was carving out pieces of your soul, sending them out into the universe, begging for judgment based on something other than the physical body you were born into. Judgment comes when you show others your work, but you welcome it. Your artwork was there for you when nobody else was, and letting audiences in was a form of connection you allowed, eventually. 

Comfort the disturbed, disturb the comfortable - your work has always been good at that. Disturbing, disturbed, you've always been that. Your creations first began as a way out - pretending that you weren’t real, his breath wasn't against your neck, you weren't real, just ink and paper, a closed book. You didn't exist unless you were being watched, only you were always being watched. In the shower, you had curtains and drew on the steam in the mirror don't see me don't see me don't and he didn’t, complaining you had left the water running, unaware you were still there. 

Your sketchbook contained self portraits with scribbles, dark lines, sometimes using permanent marker rather than your usual pens, over the parts that were usually covered by clothes. You weren’t great at drawing clothes so you didn't bother trying.

The first time you did that, giving up on drawing the clothes entirely and just making your pelvic area a big black box, you had no way of knowing what would happen, what magic your artwork might create. 

Then you found yourself beneath his hands in the backseat of your parents’ car, not bothering to even say anything because they wouldn't stop him. This was how he expressed his love, after all, and you do love your brother, don't you? The answer was what you accepted. Yes, you loved him, so you felt everything and stayed silent. Only this time was different. 

You didn't feel his hands when he touched you, as though striking through the area in ink had struck your nerves there out of existence. Or maybe you were just dissociating, you weren’t sure, but you drew another nude self portrait afterwards only to scribble over it, just in case your artwork was magic. Maybe you could draw your clothes into your person, make them unable to be removed, only that required drawing the clothing and it didn't look right, prompting erasing and redrawing, until you eventually scribbled over the whole work until it was a black cloud rather than a person. 

What you really wanted was for your parents to do their jobs and protect you, but you weren’t a skilled enough artist to sketch their disapproving faces, nevermind putting his face to paper.

 You were only a teenager, and you sometimes shut your sketchbooks for days at a time, scared even drawing might reveal too much, make more tangible what couldn’t be seen. You wished you couldn't be seen, sometimes, during those droughts when you didn't create. You would be forgotten, a faceless commenter in your art discord groups. Sometimes their questions were the only motivation you had for opening the sketchbook, taking out the pastels, making something again. 

When you created, you weren’t complaining, not at risk of saying too much and making yourself someone else's problem. You wanted to be someone else’s problem, sometimes. Fantasized about one of your teachers seeing you flinch, catching your fake smiles and asking the right questions, only you didn't even know what those questions might be. You knew the words for what was happening to you, but how would someone put them into a question? And where else would you go? No, you were better off silent. You were fine, really.

You tried a facial self portrait during one of his overnight visits, trying to avoid thinking by keeping your hands and eyes busy, crossing out your eyes in the portrait because eyes were too hard to draw and replacing them with blobs made the rest of the drawing seem more realistic.

You lucked out that night. Well, not really, he still snuck into your room and did unspeakable acts but he kept the light off. Or maybe your drawing did that act of kindness for you, you weren’t sure. You wanted to believe in magic, believe maybe you had some level of power over your situation. When life was a nightmare, who wouldn't want to live inside a sketchbook, y'know?

You sketched in notebooks meant for class, drew your teachers in an effort to pay attention to what they were saying, and they seemed to pay a bit more attention to you as well, an act that you were ambivalent about. You couldn't concretely connect the small mercies to your artwork, but you continued drawing regardless. Your friends fawned over your doodles when you shared your notes with them, impressed. You had talent, not that you planned on using it. 

Art was not your future, just a much-needed escape from the present. You showed off your drawings to your friends only and soaked in the phrase, sometimes even showing your parents your drawings. Not the figure drawings, obviously, but the doodles and self portraits that were family friendly (and damn if that wasn't an ironic choice of words, considering how friendly your family was) you sometimes showed off, when you were alone with them, making a quick exit or just quieting when he visited. 

A few times he even complimented your work, kissing your cheek, and those, those drawings you tore up completely, rewriting the notes on those pages first, hating yourself so much as you did so. The burning memory of his lips on your cheek prompted you to shower, only he pretended to need to use the bathroom, watching you. You pretended in your mind that you were still at school, sketching… something. You couldn't think while he was touching himself, still watching you and complaining as you decided to leave, wrapping yourself in a towel the way your notebook cover covered the drawings you created. You ignored him, returning to your bedroom, letting the water dripping from your hair destroy the drawing he had complimented earlier. 

You would rewrite the notes in your pajamas, sketching your anxiety in the corners. Hands, that bane of most artists’ existence, you could sketch easily, and you drew his, doing what they had been doing. That act was meant to be done in private, just like showering was. But as long as your pen scribbled over the drawing afterwards, the blob next to your notes would be undecipherable. A scream from your brother's room interrupted your drawing, but you ignored it. Your parents would tell you the following morning he had accidentally closed a drawer on his finger. You would wait until they all left, home alone on a weekend morning, able to smile without it being fake for once.

You didn't hate him, couldn't hate him, but you welcomed the reprieve. After all, he couldn't touch either himself or you with a broken finger. You spent the weekend drawing animals from memory, and the more you drew, the more you would see scurrying by your window or pecking at the ground. So you then had live models to draw, and when you drew a worm that didn't exist, the robin right in front of you found one, life imitating art. 

You wondered, sometimes, if you could draw a friend into existence who would already know. But you didn’t have the courage to risk the magic failing you. Every other part of your life involved some level of failure - creating didn’t. Creating couldn't rescue you, but you needed some magic in your life, and drawing added that.