An Artist's Study

I've been an artist all my life. My mother had once found me drawing in the carpet when I was four, the light of the sun casting shades into the shag. Pushing one way and pulling another. A flower. A bird. A heart. I was just a child, and we were just a family in southern Milwaukee in the numbered streets that my mother would pull out the pepper spray in. My father told her to buy me some paper. She did. There were other things I noticed about the world around me, aside from where the sun cast. I noticed the shimmer of the blonde hair that parted flatly over her shoulder. I noticed the patchy facial hair on his face that never grew in quite right. I noticed his curls that always tightened into perfect locks. This is what I've noticed about people, and the small things that make this world pretty.