30x30, mixed media, paint, glass from a broken coffee table, thread and needle

I started to paint in early January.

I had never painted before,

but my feelings were forcing themselves out through colors.

I painted with brushes,

And when they weren’t enough,

I started painting with my hands.

An abstract of my life came out.

My hand print is how I’ve always felt about life.

I was here, I mean something.

I made it in the color of my dreams

Of having a garden,

earth to walk bare feet on

and a blue, blue sky above.

I’ve had traces of passion throughout my life,

But for years and years,

I was in a grey place.

One night

I fell madly, hopelessly and devastatingly in love

when I never thought I could love again.

I cut my long hair, letting all my past go, starting anew.

My life was bursting with color.

I was in love with the most wonderful man in the world.

I was always in awe

When we spoke.

One day, I broke my coffee table

when I felt his storm coming,

and became restless.

What that coffee table meant to me was

the first thing I ever bought on my own,

and where I spent most days drinking coffee and reading,

listening to my music,

for years and years.

When it shattered into a million pieces,

I didn’t want to let it go.

I saved some shards to use in my art, so it will be forever a part of me.

The sound of those broken shards of glass will stay in me forever.

It kept breaking and breaking for minutes on end,

Like a quiet song

of my heart.

I knew he will let me go one day soon.

That his storm was getting closer.

As I heard his song.

My feelings were so strong,

That one day I went blind

And hoped I would meet him on the dark side of the moon.

But his voice wasn’t my light at the end of the dark tunnel

that was my day.

I was brave, I only cried twice that day.

I eased him in, gave him a chance

To let me go gently.

I promised I’d always take care of him,

Even if it meant shooting myself in the heart.

I was still a beautiful disaster in a million pieces.

Because until the last moment, I hoped he wouldn’t.

I painted for the second time on the same canvas,

In the hours before.

I painted him.

My blue sky, my red passion, my sunny shore

And I spread my paint with the broken glass I saved

Because life always scratched my heart.

On the left corner down low,

My fingerprints mean the only way I knew love

before him.

Love was all maroon,

Like dried blood.

I left his special place in my painting, the red passion in my life

Pure.

I threw away all the cloudy broken pieces I painted with,

I didn't need my past shards with me.

In his place I stuck with glue

All the clear shards of my glass soul

So clear you can see right through.

The night he left,

after I told him one last time

that I adored him more than words could say,

I made him laugh for two more hours

Because I couldn’t hear his sadness.

I couldn’t let myself cry,

I was supposed to be his spring.

In my heart, an island sank slow.

Like in my painting,

the shards of glass from my blue ocean sink into my passion.

I fought with every inch of my being

To light his way back to me,

I felt the rope burns as I was trying to hang on to him,

Like my life depended on it.

But in the end even I knew

How the trees know to let go of their leaves,

That nothing can stop the winter.

I fear he only loved me

like a bullet loves the gun.

His eyes were the color of the night sky

In a postcard someone sends

When they love you,

But not enough to fight his own demons

and stay.

In the end, I tried to sew our dreams together,

But it didn’t work.

He was too far away

And he couldn't hear me.

My heart stayed the same,

My painting stayed unfinished.