I watch the blues, blacks, and greens swirl together as if they are performing an intricate yet delicate dance. They move together as one, just as we used to. I miss you, but you aren't here any more. I lost you a long time ago and dedicated my life to finding you, but you are long gone, nowhere to be found. You left me an empty shell of a person, begging for a glimpse of bright pink or vibrant yellow. Instead you left me with black, nothing but black. I am a painter now. I know it's funny, you wouldn't have thought I would ever be able to mix the right colors together to make something beautiful. We were beautiful. Painting helps me to put the beauty back into the world that you took out of it when you left.
I stare at the blues, blacks, and greens again this time with an empty mind and a blank stare. Hungover from the night before, I feel a sharp pain coming from the back of my head. Realizing these were not optimal conditions for continuing my latest painting, I crawl back in bed. I sleep a lot these days; only if I'm not painting. On occasion I write, but you never answer. That's not your fault though. I never send the letters. They are only pages from a journal that I burn in the fireplace. You would be disappointed in who I am now, maybe that's why I gave up on looking for you. Maybe I was too afraid that if you found me and came back you would leave all over again because I'm not who you remember.
I hear the familiar ring of my phone; it pierces my ears and makes my headache worse. I flip it over to see my dad's number. I hit decline. Since mom's funeral I haven't heard from him and I don't want to. He's the reason you left. After his affair you became distant. You started to disappear until one day you didn't come back.
I wake up to the smell of death. I roll over on my cold, hard mattress into the vial smelling liquid which appears to be the liquor I had consumed the night before mixed with a half digested cheeseburger from McDonald's. After realizing I am laying in my own filth and failure I close my eyes again. I have come to find that there are few things worth being alive for:
1. Bringing your beauty back into the world through painting
2. Writing to you
3. Drinking to forget you
4. Sleep
I wake up again to a knock at the door. Unfamiliar to the notion that someone might actually need me, I lay in bed frozen. After the third knock I stand and stumble through trash to the front of my apartment. In the middle of opening the door, I realize that I still have pieces of a cheeseburger in my hair and I wreak of liquor. It's my brother. I freeze. I haven't seen him in years. He looks the same as ever, just like mom. He took her death better than I did. He grieved, moved on, and made something of himself. He's a successful engineer with a wife and kids. I've never met his family but I'm sure they are all as happy and well off as he is. I'm sure his daughters look just like mom...
"Hey," I snap out of it. He's waving his hand in front of my blank face. I close the door on his face. I can't even look at him without thinking of what mom would say about what I have become. I turn towards the bathroom and head for a shower. I stopped paying bills a while ago and am bartering to at least have cold water. So here I stand in a cold shower with all of my clothes still on, washing myself and my clothes at the same time. The cold water hits my skin like bullets and makes all my goosebumps come out of hiding. I lose time and forget where I am until all of a sudden I am brought to my knees throwing up the rest of the cheeseburger that had held on the first time.
I sit down on my bed in the pile of trash and orange, yellow liquid that I probably won't clean. There's no point. If you were here you would clean it. If you were here this wouldn't be my life. If you were here. I miss you. I miss your big smile. I miss your vibrant facial expressions and curious mind. I miss your inquisitive nature and your sense of adventure. I miss the way you complained but deep down you were perfectly content. You will never come back, I know that. I will never be who I once was if you aren't here. I will never be me again because I was you. You were me. We were one.
I lost myself.
