who will heal my paintflesh wounds?

PROLOGUE

“Till this moment I never knew myself.”

                           -Jane Austen

~

With every brush stroke, I piece together a mirror I never knew I needed, staring back at me; with a mouth full of stars caught between its teeth, eyes pulsing like a pair of newly born hurricanes, strung up like a pearl necklace around a dainty throat.

Close the door on your way out.

You slam it instead. It is but a whisper coming from the landing, and I am left with nothing but a canvas and a row of delicate colours staining my knees, and a look more like a child than ever before.

Close the door on your way out, I should have said.

Time passes like an old friend waiting on the steps of the school they used to go to, watching the trees dwindle before their very eyes, the sky turning into a weeping widow, until you decide it’s time to go home.

But instead, you’ve left the one home you ever found to be true, and now the walls are rotting, and the glow of the evening sun is fading, and the floorboards look as washed out as I do. I look around at the space we’ve built, and it looks nothing more than an old, dusty, abandoned and forgotten dolls house.

As I pick at the fleshy paint with my fingers and dot it on the virgin opus before me, I wonder how long these four walls have been a battlefield for you, and not a haven, like we promised for each other. I wonder if you’ll ever come back.

Please come back please come back please come back please come back.

I tell myself that I need you back, because the kitchen light needs a new bulb, but I am too afraid to climb any ladder with more than two steps.

I tell myself that I need you back, because it’s getting cold outside, and we still haven’t called the landlord about our broken heater, but I’m too afraid to pick up the phone and dial the number.

I tell myself that I need you back, because the postman will be around tomorrow morning, and nothing scares me more than answering the door.

~

It is morning when you come back home.

You do not slam the door. It makes it worse, somehow. The subtle snap of the latch aches through my old bones, so quick yet soft, my body curls into the sound like I am once again a child fawning for my mother’s arms, but that space has always been ruled by you, dear. An image of you flashes through my mind. Not a thought, but a painting; you, Bluebeard, conquering the hills with your past lovers at your feet, a sword in hand, lightning splitting through the centre of the canvas-

No. That is just a painting. It is not real. Perhaps in another life, but not this one.

The sun is rubbing the sleep from its eyes and stretching its brindled rays out across the sky like arms in the morning dew, yet there is something solemn and mournful about this morphed mosaic of dappled light.

Time is running out.

But the canvas is not complete. Sure, it has been coated with dusty shades of autumn, filled with potholes some may call faces of the forgotten, but it is not done. Something is missing. It isn’t me. Who was painting this? Not I.

I just need a little more time.

It is not worth pleading to the moon to come back and haunt me, instead all I can do is watch as the sun rolls up over the hills, laughing at me, taunting me. I want to climb up through space and stars to punch a hole in its heart.

I turn to look at you, just for a second, but long enough for me to capture the perfect picture, the perfect painting. A masterpiece.

Perhaps I got it wrong. Perhaps I am Bluebeard, I have raided these lands and left them soaked in blood. Perhaps I am the villain of this story, not you.

There are tears staining your cheeks, like rollerblade marks running down your face, and you’ve never looked so much like a man before, and I forget to mention how pretty you look, because you do.

I think I might be jealous.

The words do not make it passed my lips, and I know I will regret it when the sun unsheathes its light as though disrobing from its nightwear, but the painting is not done.

A hole still sits, festering inside my chest, hollering at me like a big empty sky, and there is not a star in sight.

So, I say nothing.

I turn back around, hovering the paintbrush over its open wounds, ready to sew thread through paintflesh, and the hole still gnaws at my heart, but I think I like the pain.

I think I am very, very jealous.

I lather a new layer of sober black over the unfamiliar face staring back at me, and laughter bubbles up in my throat as I massage the paint between my fingers, under my nails, in the lines of my palms like lines on a map, but there are tears in my eyes.

I hear your footsteps behind me. There is caution in them.

I look over my shoulder. “You sound sad.” He stares at me in a cloud of confusion, dancing around his head like a merry-go-round. “Your footsteps, I mean. Why?’

His eyes are brimming with stars. Did he not sleep? Something in his mournful gaze tells me I should know what is wrong, why he is sad, but even as I search every corner of my mind to find an answer, the world remains blank.

I do not wish to go blind, but like Oedipus and all the other tragic heroes, I know that I am and there is not a bone in my body that wants to stop it, but unlike Odin I do not want to sell my eyes for knowledge, instead I want them gone because they take up too much space, and I need the space to breathe and paint and think.

He looks away, behind me, at the canvas laid out on the floor like a map. “Does it have a name?” His voice is quiet. He has been crying for some time; the words escape his raw throat in a frenzied rush, fragmented and disjointed, like the eaves of my mind.

I do not mean to sound poetic.

“No. Not yet, but someday.” I do not know when that day will come, if it will ever come, but in my mind, someday might mean tomorrow; tomorrow it will be mounted on a gallery wall made of marble and gold, and only the greatest of artists will see its naked glory with their own eyes; Van Gogh, Waterhouse, Matisse, Kahlo, Monet, Klimt… allowed to walk the earth one more time to see what masterpiece I’ve created this time.

But that is a dream only fools see truth in. The canvas laid out before me is not for the eyes of brilliant masterminds, or Art’s kings and queens, instead it is made only for the ordinary. The ones that never made it. The ones that had hopes and dreams that they could make a name for themselves, to be known more than just the poor artist living in a caravan down the road, but that dream is shatter every time they open the fridge and sigh because they have nothing to eat; they spent their money on paintbrushes that will never be used, because inspiration cannot be inhaled through the nose and crafted out the mouth and into your scrubby fingertips, and besides… the air is too thin out here anyway. Gosh. To be known as something entirely broken but beautiful would be a dream.

Broken, but beautiful. I suppose I have achieved half the dream.

“Where did you go?” I do not know how I manage to summon the words, and at first it seems like I am not the one answering, but I have hated my voice long enough to know.

“We ran out of cat food.”

“There’s some next to the fridge.”

“No, there isn’t.” I feel him move closer. “Maybe if you looked up and around you every now and then you would notice.” He falls silent, but I know there is more that he needs to say. I hate that I know him so well, I hate that I brace myself for the gunshot. “I’m leaving you, Theo. For real this time. I’ve already packed my things. I’ll be gone by the morning.”

It doesn’t hit me as hard as I would have thought, or maybe as painful as I would have liked, instead the words just decide to linger. Please, let a wave of sadness and guilt crash over me, let a truckload of sorrow hit me through the ribs, or a knife-shaped heartbreak split through my back. Please, something big, something that will hurt.

Something that will hurt.

“Did you hear me? Theo?”

My name no longer sounds lovable on his lips. He used to say my name like had never met anyone so precious, never found someone so raw and true, he used to say it like he loved me. I’m sure he did. I’m sure I loved him too, but what drives me insane is the fact I do not remember when I fell out of love.

“I heard you.” I wish I heard you sooner. “And I understand.” I wish I understood at the time. “I’m sorry.” I wish I said sorry more.

“So am I.”

For what? There was nothing he could be sorry for. He was perfect in every way, but too perfect for someone as broken as me. Broken, but beautiful. No. They got that all wrong. There is nothing beautiful about the person I have become.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t fix you.”How I wish you could.

How I wish anyone could.

I feel a tear well between my lashes, but I blink it away. I will not let him see me cry. He has seen me vulnerable and bare far too many times. He will not see me bare now.

So, I pick up the paintbrush. I let it touch the canvas, the bristles bend and shrivel in the thick skin of paint. “Don’t forget your vinyl’s.”

“Is that it? You have nothing else to say?”

I say nothing.

His hand finds my chin, and I am forced to face him, to face the broken man before me, to face the pain I have caused, and the damage done. “Is this how our story ends?”

How else was it supposed to end?

“I don’t want you to hate me, Theo. I don’t want you to paint me as the bad guy in all your paintings, and I… I don’t want to turn my back on this place hating you, too.”

I could never hate you.

“So, stay.” How weak he must think me, begging him to stay with me when we no longer love each other, pleading that he may pretend just another day, if that is what it takes to feel loved, to feel whole, to feel safe and alive once more.

“I can’t, Theo. Not this time.” His hand falls from my face, leaving me cold, leaving me wanting, aching. The floorboards creaks from behind me as he stands, heading for the door, holding his breath as though he’s scared to wake the monster in the cupboards. I do not turn as he opens the door, taking his things with him, hovering in the doorframe like a phantom coming to guide me to the underworld.

“Goodbye, Theo.”

We don’t do goodbyes. We made a promise to never say that word. It held too much weight, too much fear, so instead we would say ‘see ya later.’ But I suppose, in this moment, that doesn’t quite work. I won’t see him later, or soon, or ever again. Perhaps in a few years’ time we’ll stumble into each other at a friend of a friend’s party, and we’ll buy each other drinks and talk about our new lives, our new jobs, our new partners; husband or wife, girlfriend or boyfriend, fling or crush… And we’ll reminisce over the time we were in love, joke about how young and stupid and afraid we were, how much time we wasted balancing on the tightrope when we should have just jumped. And perhaps we’ll wonder what would have been different, if we had stayed together, how far would it have gone? We’ll end the night, part ways, thinking what kind of people we’d be if it had worked itself out, wondering whether there was still some space in our hearts held for the other.

Because surely love cannot be so quick to disappear. After loving him so long, there is a part of my life, my heart, my body, my spirit… that will always be his.

It is enough hope for me to say, “Goodbye, Luke.”

But I do not turn to watch him leave, to see his face as the door closes between us, because I know that is a painting I cannot finish, and for the first time ever, I will not try.

~

I named the painting after us, dear. Unfinished, broken, but perfect.