"we fell in love the way you fall in leaves."
Juwan "Rocky" Rockwell has had a pretty hard life. Between trying to find a way to fend for himself and dealing with the normal hardships of teenage angst, he had nowhere to turn as an adolescent and no...
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"mind games"
How the fuck did I end up here? I mean— honestly, how did I get here?
One minute, we were reminiscing over coffee, and now she's all over me in her art studio.
She told me about these elaborate ass murals she planned on doing, and she claimed that she wanted my input. I didn't think she needed it, but she admitted that ever since we ended whatever the hell we had going on, she's been lost artistically. We've always given critiques and recommended improvements for each other's work, but I knew that she was just trying to play me. Six years has passed and suddenly, she needs my damn input? I mean— she's gotten her works sold in galleries. She's obviously doing something right without my input.
But, I thought: why not? I wanted to see how her pen has evolved over the years. I didn't give a fuck about whatever murals she was talking about. I was more interested in her private portraits and sketches. I've always preferred those in comparison to the other types of work she's done. They were raw and full of gore. The shit was a little frightening at first, but it was ultimately refreshing. I never yearned for such horror until she showed me her sketch book, back in high school.
She lived in Manhattan and had her hands on a nice, spacious apartment. It was basic— enough for just one person— with exception of her art studio. It was filled from top to bottom with her works.
Her paintings had improved substantially, but boy oh boy, those sketches were unlike anything I'd ever seen. It was less gore-y but still raw. She gave accounts of heartbreak and lust— toxicity and forbidden fruit. Her pieces told her story and summed her up as a person so well.
She was toxic, and looking at her art reminded me of that. She was manipulative and daring— tempting. I never saw it when we were kids. I was blinded by her charm and sensual aura. I was too involved, back then.
She was mature and understanding. She always held an appeal that was of a grown ass woman, causing heat to creep up my neck with one look and my nature to rise with her choice of words.
Now, it was a different story. All the shit that I was too naïve to see back then was becoming clear as I stood there with her sketches in the palm of my hands. However, the haze that she was always capable of draping over me came back with a vengeance once her arms lassoed themselves around me.
"Do you like them?" her seductive voice crept into my ear. "Yeah. . . Your, uh, pen has really evolved. I gotta' say— I fucked with the horror of it all a little more," I continued to turn to the next page. She released a breath of a laugh. "There's horror in all things— even love."
"How so?" I inquired, taking in the image of graveyards, broken hearts, and broken people. "It's all great on the surface. They're always on your mind, you hold them close at night, life is good— life is great."
