you hid from me

van gogh's lesser known still life paintings

baby, i know life isn't a movie scene

all dolled up, staged, and directed for the common dream

but it can get pretty damn close

please

close your eyes and picture a world without the love you've received

go on

now open them and tell me what you saw

was it ugly?

were you even alive?

art can be ugly too

but it isn't dead

we're living it

you're living proof that art can be fluid in form

deceiving, maybe

but also painfully honest

and i would never hide that from you

i want moments with you so incredibly good

that we forget them

in the midst of all the bad ones

(those we seem to remember the most)

i want to meet you someday

shake your hand and cry about the things we don't usually say

how the hurt is so old that it decays in our stomachs

how it lives like a phantom in our operatic chests

how it feels like our bodies are a hermit crab's shell

we're ready to move out any day now

how we're so close to death that we can feel its breath on the nape of our necks and we turn around and smile

how it's all in our brains and that's okay because a brain is an organ that can get sick too

it's okay to be sick in the head

it's okay to need help for it

none of this is glamorous

or romantic

or picturesque

and you'll never feel like art

just know that you are

no matter how much acne you have

or how ugly you get when you're angry or sad

or if you don't dress like the other kids

with rich dads

my darling

give yourself a break

maybe after all of this

years down the road

the days will end in a kiss or a soft-lipped smile just for yourself

and heavy eyelids fluttering shut

on a moonlit room

and some kind of familiar

warmth/arms/humming chest

art isn't dead

and neither are you

a/n: you deserve love. you deserve to live.