I press on the bruise, trying to make hurt again. I do it all the time, worry at old wounds in an effort to evocate their peaks. Nothing’s ever the same though, not even pain. I feel like an artist rendering ruins in digital 3D, disastrously flat extrapolations despite the ability. I could fill a gallery with these abstractions, obtruded into seperate wings with woeful didactics strung as diegeses for each — heartbreak half-formed; scars smoothed over time; anguish in relief; negative space — all would be incompetent. The pains of expression are so acute I’m desperate to sketch them.
It’s hard not to watch her, the water beading at her skin like sea pearls sloughed by the ocean onto a beach made of glass. You’re beautiful, I say, ignoring the shower spray hitting my face. She spits a mouthful of it in the air like a childish cherubic fountain and smiles under the downpour. ‘I’m so wet,’ she says, laughing harder than the liquid’s porcelain patter. I mean, I say, your skin looks like freshly turned ochre spread by coarse, artists fingers. ‘Shush,’ she says, get my back. I put my hands upon her gladly and drink deep.
Two lovers share a perfect silence, there’s a hint of sunset and a subtle string composition pulling the poignancy taut across the scene. I don’t know what’s going on, I haven’t been paying attention because of the chyron, but Cleo doesn’t care. ‘So what?’ she muses, ‘Piracy isn’t a thing. Creating something means giving it to the world.’ She inclines sharply toward the the lovers, ‘Everyone deserves this, but they bully us for money. Instead of raising a fist they should put out a hand.’ Like a beggar? I ask, and she tells me, ‘No, darling. Like an artist.’
A Few Short Words 