In a Gallery at Midnight

It’s my face.

I don’t know how I can tell. Her features are obscured, just impressions of lips and nose. She is sand-blasted with shadows, and long black hair covers her eyes, something between a veil and a blindfold. Her head is tilted back, her long neck taut, immersed in the calm ecstasy of being free, finally, from the burning drug of truth.

Memories surface, monsters in the murky waters of my mind’s lake. I am ready for them; they don’t live long. Iron will is stronger than a sword, kills more quickly than a knight in platemail. I will them into temporary death, knowing they’ll never be truly gone but knowing, too, that it’s enough.

I open my eyes, not realizing I had closed them, that my internal struggles touch my external world. The painting confronts me like a slap to the face; and yet. And yet I can’t help but think how satiated she looks. I didn’t think he would ever understand – that he could ever see how happy my choices could make me. Is there something like understanding in the brush strokes? Something like forgiveness?

I sense him behind me. Most days I don’t believe in things like souls, the energy we’re said to give off; most days I choose not to, choose to believe the world is as small as I have made it, that it is something I can hold in my two hands. But I feel him behind me, without a sound to give his presence away, without a scent that reminds me of him.

Memories. The water ripples and I know something is alive beneath it, a creature with a will of its own, sharp spines and beautiful scales. Beneath the terror I know there is the possibility of joy, of beauty, the heights and depths. If I let it out it could live again in what I’ve left behind, feel like I haven’t felt since I dropped his hand, feel breath that is a part of me, feel the madness of joy unchecked. But I would also be devoured. I could fall, fall and never land, and I know already where that path leads.

I close my eyes and breathe softly, brushing the waves away.

When I turn, there’s no one there. Just a gallery, milling hipsters and art critics with glasses of wine and too-hot canapes. I look back at the painting, and smile.

I think it’s something like forgiveness.

I wander on to the next piece, and slip the painting into the deep, dark waves.

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Image curtesy of Curtis Duke. Curtis is a painter and tattoo artist. You can see more of his work at Darkside Tattoo Parlour, where he works.