Graphite || h.s

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

All around my room, drawings that I'd done were pinned up on the walls. I sat cross legged on my bed and looked around. Most of my drawings were detailed facial features, although a few were small things like a butterfly or a ladybird. Slowly standing up, I tiptoed over to a wall, and gently pulled the pieces of paper from the wall, before discarding them to my bed.

I flicked through some of the drawings, selecting certain ones and arranging them in different ways. By the time I'd finished, I realised that I'd been subconsciously drawing each piece of the jigsaw. A face full of secrets and mysteries lay before me. Wistful eyes, and slightly parted lips gave the expression of despair.

Without even realising, I'd been completing the jigsaw.

Every aspect of the face held a haunting sadness. A sadness that I'd never intended to draw.

I began to clear one of my walls, stuffing the pieces of paper I tore down into a drawer. Each part of the face was pinned up to my wall, the area around the face looked bare, as the drawings that had once occupied the space were now no more.

It felt strange. Not having a wall of drawings there anymore. But in a way I liked it. It brightened the room. It opened it up.

It had been years since I'd seen the true lilac colour of the walls underneath. The drawings had started going up when I was thirteen, and since then, I'd continued to add to my collection. From there, it had just continued to grow.

Drawing gave me a peace of mind, a place to escape. Drawings had been able to speak to me in ways that other people couldn't. It made me happy, just lifting a pencil to a piece of crisp, white paper.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't just pick up a pencil and know how to draw. Through a mixture of self-teaching and art classes at school, I adapted to new styles and grew in my art.

I went through a stage where I isolated myself, and it became about just me and my drawings. I believed they were real, I thought I could talk to them. I remember the meeting my parents were called to with my headteacher, how I was made to sit through all of it.

"She's become very antisocial within the school confines."

"It can't be healthy."

"The children have been calling her strange."

Hearing all of it hurt, but I guess in a way it made me realise, that they were just drawings. I refused to let it stop me from drawing, I simply allowed it to show me the divide between reality and fantasy.

A divide that began to close in on me all too soon.