Burning Art

The ghosts from my "closet" attacked me and tried to eat me, alive. All of my overlooked emotions, fed up with being shoved to the corner for ages, surged up in all their vengeful power to haunt me. My body, unable to fend back, fell ill, and took the metaphor of bleeding itself out, a little too seriously. I seriously needed to start expressing this internal battle within me onto something external; so that my body would quit wanting to manifest everything physically...

And so, I took a discarded piece of wood and made it my canvas. I channeled all my darkness and woundedness onto it. I crafted an art piece and imbued it with my bruises by using hues of black & blue paint. I even wrote cuss words onto the composition itself. I painted with a mad furry and fought my conditioning—that compulsive impulse to make everything aesthetically pleasing. After all, this piece was not for placating others. It wasn't for others to admire it's beauty or to be used as a way to garter praise for my artistic skills. No, this art piece was more along the lines of a self directed exorcism.

At last, when I saw the finished portrait reflected back to me, it hit me—just how much pain I was in. I was face-to-face with my greatest fears & misconceptions about myself. I had externalized them symbolically and out came a portrait of my self-loathing which made my friends not only cringe but shutter, too.

For a moment, I kind of liked that it had that affect on people. I liked that it looked edgy and alluring; the same way a stylish post-apocalyptic photo shoot would, both romanticizing destruction. Only, this was my destruction we were talking about. When I realized that, I couldn't just sit and look at this distortion of reality, at these lies before me, and not take action against them. I had to purge them. Even if I was their original source, I couldn't keep living with that which had turned to poison. Especially, not now with it staring back at me. I needed to firmly reject this venom from my life, before it got the chance to consume me, whole. So, I grabbed the painting and took it outside, in the middle of the night with snow all around. My friends and I built a fire.

As I took one final look at the art piece... I took a deep breath and asked myself the question, 'If this is not me, then who am I, really?"

Immediately, I felt the resurgence of all that makes me, me. It was such a juxtaposition from the marred version of myself that I held in my hands. With righteous indignation I took the painting, ripped it apart and let it burn into flames. As the noxious fumes rose up and fouled the air I breathed, I saw how toxic these notions within the frame had been for me.

Those misconceptions, broken fragments of my past which slashed gashes into my self reflection and blinded me—those do not define me. And so, I released them.

Snow put out the fire & the imagery of the black, scorching ash being replaced by the pure white of the glistening snow became such a metaphor for the healing taking place inside my soul! Snow and ash turned from something solid, a mass, into something fluid—water, which spilled down the hill and ran its course, taking my fears along with it.

I released it all, and the stifled desperation from not allowing myself to be heard through the sedation of procrastination—that was gone. It left because I actually listened this time & I took action, on my behalf... for once. Sometimes what we require is not to be rescued by an overly romanticized fairy tale that we are taught to wait around for our whole lives. Sometimes, we need to rescue ourselves through radical acts of self-love. Even if it means burning art during a snowstorm at midnight.

Some of the most blessed periods of my life came after going through the darkest nights my soul has faced. And now that I have let go, I feel like myself again, only better. I am stronger. The twinkle in my eye is back. I've felt the spark of mischievous joy re-ignite my heart, once more & it brings me peace. It's the type of joy that induces all sorts of things; like a sense of sustenance, the random release of soul quenching sighs and outbursts of spontaneous happy dances.