the painter has soft skin (revised)

But baby, I did love you. I know how you liked your breakfast; tea and scrambled eggs. I know how old you were when you left your drunk father. I know how bored you get when we go out with my friends; what your opinion is regarding today’s government officials. I can describe all the flecks of color in your eyes. I know the lines on your hand better than you do yourself. I happen to know how badly broken you are, and I love you so much more for it. Remember when I took you to see Carl, the homeless man who sleeps under the trees outside your apartment? I didn’t tell you that whenever I wait for you, he’s the one who keeps me company. He knows your name even when you've never introduced yourself because I tell him how crazy I am for you. I hope you don’t forget that you’re the only one whose hand I hold and kiss while I drive- as though it’s my lifeline. Your art consumes me in the most terrible way. Your fingers formed a nuclear bomb inside my body because the feelings are just too much to bear and my bones, my muscles, are completely done. There's just a way with which you draw lines across your canvases; the way you hold your brush. It’s how you transform into a different person, a more intense, dangerous version of yourself. There are times when I see you age fifty years in less than fifteen seconds, and there are times when I see your face light with that damned innocence in just three. Your gaze are sharper than a lion’s teeth, your knuckles tainted with a plenitude of faded colors. I noticed it, you know. When we’re separated, even just for a few days, the paintings you make are completely forsaken. They remind me of abandoned children in the west, never really finding their way home. Then right the second I land in my homesate, your messy apartment is where I long to be. It takes you more than three days to realize I’m back home, with you. Are you hearing voices again? Are they telling you that I’m nothing but a mist in the autumn morning? Because they keep you farther from me than I could ever tell you. I hate how everything you do affects me. When I read and your head rests sleeping in my lap under the drowning sun... it's an escape from real life. The way your fingertips lightly spring pirouettes again and again on my skin. That was when I knew that it was not only you who was passionate for art, but that your easels and canvases and scrapers loved you too. And that you loved them so much more than you loved me. It was nice having you as my lover, though. I don’t let the bitterness corrupt me. Because all I remember when people readdress my past relationship with a deluded painter is how we took showers with each other in the most virtuous, innocent way possible. You, soaping my raw neck. Me, exposed to the world’s most beautiful painter.

Reviews

[Madalyn Beck]

This is a powerful write! You have good imagery and descriptions in here. This is an excellent story. Great job! (:

[Coyote Poetry]

A amazing story. The description took the reader to good places. I like the thoughts inside the story. To be unafraid and be viewed as beauty. A very good place to be. Thank you for sharing the excellent story.
Coyote

[Savannah Bly]

This is a great, powerful story of emotion for a loved one! Great descriptions and imagery. Well done.

[Deuces]

This was an in-depth, mature and empathetic tribute to a past lover. Your descriptions, adjectives and imagery are second to none. I liked the "typewriter" look and feel as well. Very, very unique and well appreciated. Really enjoyed this. Every man dreams for letters like this.

Great line: They remind me of abandoned children in the west, never really finding their way home.

Awesome work.

[Addie Santos]

Thank you so much. You're kind, and I hope your words are read by your lover every night x

[Kuldeep desai]

really I can see maturity in this story.....

[Addie Santos]

Maturity is about letting go.