happy

i find it hard to write when im happy. i read a poem once, that said that van gogh used to eat yellow paint. to make himself happy. that’s what everyone always says about van gogh. that he tried to make himself happy. they say that he tried to put his pain onto the canvas, that the constant war in his chest gave his hands the strength to create Cafe Terrace at Night. and van gogh used to eat yellow paint. to make himself happy. and i think perhaps we misunderstand him. we look at his pain, and don’t look much further. we see beauty on canvas and ask from what pain it was born. i find it hard to write when im happy. and van gogh used to eat yellow paint. to make himself happy. but i think he was perfectly happy. at least in some ways. it was not with bloody hands that he painted. it was with hands awash with all of the beauty he could find. it was never the sadness that made his paintings beautiful. sadness is never beautiful. it was the spite. in spite of the sadness, he still fought to find the beauty in the world. to document it in every way he knew how and to let the world see. and i find it hard to write when im happy and van gogh used to eat yellow paint. to make himself happy. and it was not the yellow paint that made him happy. at least not how we think.