Art mimics life. It’s quite simple, honestly, the concept itself, but often forgotten by those that create art. The artist often finds himself so lost in this world he creates that he loses touch of life. For instance, If I’m a writer that also does groceries, and buys watermelons, and vegetables on the weekend, then perhaps me writing about carrying bricks and perspiring sweat on flesh and how the wind blows gently against my flesh, is a far fetched concept.
Similarly, if an artist that has only seen loss, & writes about love, his work loses meaning, because that’s just not him. Like if I’m someone that has seen my father being lowered into a grave and seen my lover walk out of my life, then that must be where the substance of my work should come from. I can not and should not write about flowers and love notes and how a kiss can heal a wound no one can see.
I’m into a different type of art form though, I like to call it abstract, but I’m sure even abstract art has some structure and discipline to it. What I’m doing these days is just sheer randomness. I’m embracing my Dadist side. I really like it, I just pen whatever that is poured into me. Like I wrote this thing: “You love me like you a good girl / like you a good one / like you fear no one / like you see the sky & wave at the lost ones / like you touch a flower and it moans your name / you love me like you really think I’m hot / you love me like you obsessed / like you possessed / go easy princess / let me breathe a little / let me scream a little / let me eat a little” As random as it is, it does hold some structure, not because I intended it, but on some sheer randomness. It’s fun, how this is provocative, borderline sexual, but I don’t mean it like that at all. I see it in an absolutely different light. Like the scene being set between two lovers, one so hopelessly obedient and the other so extremely disregarding and dismissive. There’s more empathy than lust that requires to be received.
Amongst the many accolades that an artist triumphs, one that stands out for the artist is when he/she begins truly loving his own art again. He rekindles the joy he lost once. It’s the best feeling ever. You draw, write or paint, just for the fucks of it. Like you used to.
I sink my fingers in that blood; the blood of those who lost everything in the pursuit of art. The pursuit of art demands sacrifice, it requires the slaughtering of lovers.
I’ve always felt like there’s this underlying vendetta when it comes to the love of an artist. Like this hidden agenda of eventually turning the lover into a piece of art. To paint with the blood of their memories.
It is the complexity of life that truly transmogrifies the art inspired by it. The color of darkness must always exist for the color of light to be justified. We must learn to relish the darkness, to look within and sit in it. Pain may not always be wanted but it exists, and that’s what matters.
If you’re asking whether this is a story about right or wrong, the answer is: no one cares. We care for what feeds us, we are mammals only acting on instinct and hunger. We swallow whatever we can, and if we can’t we tend to be kind. Not because we aren’t hungry or we’ve found some sense of control, but because we do not want to be eaten by what we can’t eat.
The quagmire is not that we haven’t yet truly understood the darkness, the real imbroglio lies in the moral fright of accepting the darkness as our own. It is pretending that we are only light.
So speak to yourself, that child, within. That lives in that dark room, ask him what it feels like, why he decided to go there, why does he never want to come back.
Do it before the moment of helplessness arrives and all you are left to say is that I could’ve done better.
In my life, I tend to regret very little, the sins I paint my heart with I repent for them as I wipe my heart clean. The good deeds only make me feel pure. I do not intend on changing this dynamic with God, mostly because, what other dynamic would suit a slave and a master. Isn’t a slave meant to make mistakes, repeatedly, and doesn’t it befit a master to forgive and teach him. I am being taught, I am learning, I am growing. I’m trying to be better. I am accepting the child in that dark room, and the dark room itself.
I have painted my painting with black, white, red, and tears and that is what gives it true meaning, what makes it truly and utterly beautiful.
“When it comes to you, and all your problems and point of view, I have to be there to support it and understand it, but when it comes to me and my stuff, no one gives a fuck.”
“I’ve been there for you. You just didn’t see it, when you had your moods, your isolation, your hiding, I was there. Waiting for you to come back. You just never fucking saw me, you never fucking accepted my help.”
“No, actually, you just stood by until I got over it. You just waited for the fucking shit to be dealt with so that you wouldn’t have to deal with it because you didn’t care, because your mental peace was so fucking important. So fucking congratulations, you fucking broke me, you fucking broke this. Now we’re done.”
“I didn’t break it, you did. You sabotaged us, like you always do.”
“Yeah, you know, you’re right. And it’s because I fucking hate myself. I hate myself more than I will ever love you. And you know what? Remember when I asked If you loved me, back when we started out? And you said you did, I didn’t ask you to hear that, I actually wanted to hear that you don’t love me, better yet, I wish you had said you hate me, because that’s what I fucking love.”
“You’re a selfish self pitying self sabotaging son of a bitch, Ammaar.”
“Don’t put shame on the name you moaned.”
“Fuck you.”
“You won’t have to, I’m out.”
“Yeah fucking leave. I don’t want to see your face again.”
“You’re just a story now, you won’t have to see it. You don’t exist to me anymore. I’mma write you like a character now.”
