#NaPoWriMo Day 24: Portrait Of Blood And Tears.

Today, I chose to go with a prompt that is not via NaPoWriMo. My prompt was to write a eulogy for a painting, and it just so happens that I had a painting I made waiting to be eulogized.

I almost gave up on writing today because I have been feeling pretty under the weather, and I am very bummed out about how I keep writing, and even though I don’t always expect it, I still appreciate people reaching out to me and telling me that they like what I write, and it just feels like people have been ignoring my work, for whatever reason. I don’t blame them, but I can’t help but feel like my work isn’t up to the mark. I somehow managed to get this one out of my system, though, because I am so close to following NaPoWriMo for the entire month, and I am not going to give up when there’s less than a week left.

And while you’re here, please go read the poems written by my best friends, Kittu’s Modern Mixtape and Amour Infini; they always have such brilliant takes and it leaves me awestruck every single time.

Hope you enjoy reading this poem, and don’t miss out on the endnotes for more! Xx

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It was the most beautiful shade of red,
Transitioning into a black vignette,
Like a deep wound, several days old,
Still healing, painfully slow,
Still a little raw—
I wasn’t lying when I said I used my blood and tears to paint.

And I remember painting onto the canvas
A heart that could very well be my own,
Shrivelled up, cracked, covered in vines,
Their roots running deep,
Digging their way into the heart,
And in the most  unlikeliest of places,
As though grasping on to hope,
I decided the vines should grow blossoming flowers.

But that’s just how the mind goes,
And the river of inspiration runs dry,
All tapped out
Under the harshest drought,
We draw and draw from it until there’s nothing left,
Perhaps, except
The painting left incomplete,
Collecting dust as it stands on the easel,
Like that very image it has,
How ironic, isn’t it?

And I mourn what it could have been,
For that image I had painted in my head,
The image I had given up on like a broken dream,
Like I was rudely awakened before I could even fathom
All the potential that an image could hold,
And I mourn that incomplete piece of my soul
That remains an unsightly patch of white
Against the vibrant blood red;
And no image I could ever paint with my words
Could ever hope to compare.

But all that remains of it now
Is a broken dream,
Far too incomplete,
The paint now faded several shades darker,
Like blood oxidized
Dry.

So, we gather here on this fine day
To mourn the art that was never made,
I would know;
I still glance at the canvas that lies
Tossed aside,
Wasting away—
The loss hits me the hardest in ways
I cannot measure in mere words,
So much love went into making
What never saw the light of this world.

And I can only hope that there comes a day
When I attempt to finish what I started,
Once again,
The world shall see the picture I wished to paint;

I can only hope the inspiration flows again,
I only wish I can pick up the paintbrush I tossed,
Someday.

~© Shubhangi Srinivasan.

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Artists do this thing where they leave something they started, with big ideas in their head, incomplete. And when they finally go back to actually complete working on whatever they started, they realize that the inspiration is gone and what they’re left with is just an incomplete work that makes no sense whatsoever. This is probably why every artist I know of either completes making something in a single sitting or never gets around to it at all. I am, unfortunately, one of those artists and I feel pretty bad about all the work that I keep leaving incomplete. I hope this poem struck a chord with you.
Yours truly,
The Shubhster. Xx

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Featured Image by Cassi Josh on Unsplash