But Art?

People ask why I choose the page

over their hands, their lips, their company.

Because they don’t understand.

They never could.

People fade.

They talk pretty and break promises.

They grow tired, they pull away,

they flinch at the weight of what I carry.

They want the shine, not the storm.

They want pieces of me

small enough to swallow.

But art?

Art takes me whole.

It doesn’t ask me to be gentle.

It doesn’t run when I bleed too much.

It rips me open,

drinks every ounce of my silence,

and spits it back as fire.

The brush doesn’t care if I’m too much.

The pen doesn’t flinch when I shake.

The canvas doesn’t demand that I soften myself

to be held.

It devours me,

hungry, unashamed,

and when it’s done,

I am wrecked and reborn in the same breath.

That is why people lose to art.

Because no human has ever matched its appetite,

its honesty,

its cruelty that somehow heals me.

They want love.

The page wants everything.

And I’d rather be consumed

than coddled.