Art; The Sum Total of My Being

Art is difficult to explain

Hard to comprehend

It can form creases in a child’s laughing eyes

It has the ability to make grown men crumple to the floor

And cry

It can stir up the personal luggage that just barely skims the surface of my conscious mind

The unfinished words and buried treasures consigned to oblivion

Empty houses and lost dolls

Forgotten promises and curtained secrets

All of the moments that seemed so insignificant but had the capacity to

Leave an impression no one else could see

All of these things lurk beneath my skull

When the sleep clings to my eyelids

During those silent, candid hours of the day

When all thoughts are genuine

Art is how I reveal them

In their truest forms

Raw

Naked

Art’s a part of me and

I’m a part of it

It’s why I look at the world through kaleidoscope eyes

Selecting patterns and colors all wrapped inside a moment

Art gives me the ability to delve into the distorted images and

Elusive emotions skulking under the radar of my busy self who is far too often

Caught in the midst of life’s monotonous routine and lethargic crawl to success

Too preoccupied to just simply be

When I leave that behind me and peer beyond society’s bustling lining

I find myself in places within me

Where thoughts are rough and rigid

And disturbing things are knitted into a serene beauty

Towering cathedrals of euphoria and nostalgia

Float on ecstasy-trimmed clouds dripping bliss in their wake

Empty empires of sand pile on the tip of my paint brush

Holding their breath

Waiting apprehensively to

Meet the vacant and patient canvas

Memories flit by

Snap

Snap

Snap

But the camera lens is too small

And the moments are too large to capture

Their fluid movements are too quick for my small hands

Frantically trying to catch them and stuff them into jars

Before they slip to a carpet carved from Autumn leaves

And past dreams

All these things play their roles in the hectic ballet taking place in my brain

Until they finally find their place outside the edges of my mind

Only then can I peel back my calloused soul

Unveiling all the vulnerable and naked flesh beneath

A surface where reality melds into illusion

Art fills me to the brim

With a wild and crazy desire to take these emotions and thoughts from inside me

And attempt to build them with my young, clumsy hands

Striving to create paintings of painful beauty and perfection

That have the ability to make people weep

That is my passion