Piece of Art

I’m not going to lie to you.  I’m not going to feed you with this false belief that I understand the way you feel… your emptiness I mean.  Perhaps at times I can relate, but I cannot comprehend living years of my life within that never ending, seemingly bottomless feeling… if that’s what you want to call it.  To live the best years of my life stuck on a love that doesn’t allow me to feel love for others, to wake up each morning and live each day just to say I did it is an inconceivable concept to me, but maybe I just don’t understand you the way I would hope to.1

What’s so funny to me is how you claim that you’re not a great person, that you lack compassion, that you lack ambition, that you lack life, and how you shouldn’t be admired and respected, yet I disagree with you…2

You?  You see yourself as nothing.  You see yourself as a lump of dry clay that will never be shaped, merely left to sit there, waiting for the hands that created you to return and finish the piece.  You pay excruciating detail to the cracks that have formed as time has passed.  You allow your color to dull and fade into a shameful shade of gray.3

But, my friend, you have forgotten one key element to this picture… You are the one looking at it.  These descriptions are merely of a view you see of the sculpture that stares back at you from the mirror.4

But… What do others see?  Or do you even care to know?5

You seem utterly fazed by my questions, surprised to see that I cared enough to take the time out of days when I had no time to, to compose this for you.  Well… I suppose here’s where I get to the point of this speech, this essay, this lecture, whatever you feel like calling it…6

I cannot dictate your feelings.  If I could, I would try to do something to fill you with life again, maybe be that spark to reignite your flame.  Sadly enough, I cannot.  I do not possess enough strength or enough charm to do so, and for that, I apologize to you.  The best I can do is try to show you the person I see when I look at you.7

I suppose the best way I can describe you is by comparing you to a piece of art.  Your gentle eyes, your dry wit, the high falsettos you hit when you tell me you want to scream, are all colors that add to the brilliance of the sculpture you’ve made yourself.  Smiles often part my lips when I see you, and God knows I’m one who rarely gives a full smile.8

I trust you, and you and I both know how difficult it is for me to confide in people.  My confidence for you is so high that I am willing to bear all for you and show you the person I really am.  If you asked me to, I’d tear down the walls of the fortress you’ve already managed to breach.9

Now friend, please don’t misconstrue the message I’m trying to convey to you.  I am not trying to confess some sort of undying love for you or even some infatuation, though there may be some sort of possible chance that I do possess the latter of the two, but to a small degree that is.  I’ve taken the time to do this in hopes that you may understand why I care, why I ask you to share the story of a past tragedy that has left deep wounds within you.10

And I know you will never allow me close enough to perhaps try and mend your wounds, but please know that I want to.  Please know that the emptiness you have been left with is something that I can clearly see.  But also know that you’re not alone, because I am here when you need me.  Plus… I kind of owe you for it.11

But before I end my prattling and take my seat again, wondering how this has effected you, or if it even has, I want to share something about myself.12

I cannot understand your emptiness because I am your exact opposite in that sense.  I share that somewhat lonely sensation, but rather than feel hollow because of it, I am instead overly saturated with emotions, whether they be positive of negative emotions.  I choose to seemingly appear numb.  I suppose you could say I give myself my own doses of emotional morphine, but I am not numb like you.13

On the outside, I have become just as hard as you, but on the inside, I’m a pile of soft clay that’s waiting to set.  But whether we be hollowed or filled to capacity, we’re still our own unique sculptures, and whether you believe it or not, every piece of art is deserving of worth and admiration, especially one as amazing as you.14