Alone [manxman]

seven:: when all you need is a distraction.

[ Do U Dirty by Kehlani ]

SEVEN: when all you need is a distraction.

Paint had dried under my fingernails by now. The landscape in front of me nearing on decimated, desolate when I'd come back to Earth. Something about painting felt like an escape, I hadn't escaped in so long. I didn't cry when Izzy went out, I hadn't truly cried in a while.

He'd left in a hurry shortly after our conversation turned sour, insisting he had a shift to cover and he didn't kiss me goodbye. He went to, I could see it in his eyes that he wanted to. I'd disrupted everything, and I could tell he finally got the message. He'd tucked his hands in his pockets and kept a distance, lips in a fine line, I watched as he realized -as if for the first time- what we were is all we were.

I wiped my tears and tugged my hair back, it getting much too long for comfort. I needed a haircut, I needed a bit of a shower as well, the stink of the day's activities stuck to me. I'd spent the daylight hours facing truths I often tried to hide from and honestly, I was exhausted.

But I needed to finish.

I needed to work on this piece, Mike needed it yesterday. I was desperate to feel something outside myself.

I made my way to the studio, throat and stomach mirroring in knots. It was getting closer to summer, the heat smacking against my face and the minute I stepped outside I was sweating.

Maybe how much of a mental wreck I was should've been apparent with the feeling of my feet slick and sliding around in my shoes. I forgot socks. I'd already been getting comfortable in the house, bare feet padding against hardwood when Izzy had made it his mission to make everything between us awkward. And maybe I shouldn't have taken out all my problems on him.

All I knew was I still felt that same feeling I'd felt for weeks, like everything in my life sank when heard about Abuelita's condition and I never really did therapy. I made art.

Maybe my issue was that I hadn't created in so long, I forgot what it felt like.

And I didn't live far from the studio, I actually could make it there in record time if I rushed. Normally, the walk would be leisurely, take about twenty-five minutes, but this time I had the weight of the world on my chest, I made my way seven blocks and I was unlocking the door to my studio space with shaky hands.

It was empty, as almost always, concrete floors and brick walls, a room barren yet littered with work, no furniture besides easels and a few uncomfortable stools, the eyes on a 15'x15' painting followed me across the room and I was throwing down work before I knew it. I wasn't gentle.

Normally, my work would be so carefully placed against the easel or taped to the floor in such a delicate manner. I was so obsessed with preserving the canvas. This time, I tossed down everything I was carrying, I threw on the paint-splattered shirt that hung off my easel and through teary eyes, I'd pulled the piece I'd been working on off the drying rack.

It'd started back on my landscape, the last piece in a triptych. It was initially an homage to Moonlight and Mexico, I didn't know what it was now but looking at it evoked no emotion. I'd been creating something meticulously with the intention on feigning spontaneity and it... felt like I tried too hard.

The piece felt so art school it scared me, I dreaded the thought of critiques.

Of how Professor Yuen would call it amateur, how he'd drag me through mud for playing it safe. And it looked like all my pieces, it did, it looked like the AP Drawing Portfolio that I'd submitted sophomore year. I breathed heavily through my mouth, trying to hold back how fucking angry I was all of a sudden.