catharsis

I. The perturbed painter sits meditatively in front of a blank canvas/He can no longer differentiate night from day/Black from white/Wrong From right/He needs a solution, an end to the perplexing internal battle of feelings/So he paints/He creates, invents, and innovates the most spectacular of wonderworks/Entangling his convoluted emotions into bittersweet words/And translating the imagery of a hundred unspoken thoughts into colorful, picturesque settings.

He is surrounded by clear skies.

ii. In a dizzying state of elation his fingers work like magic/Spreading thick splatters of warm-colored puddles across the snowy white landscape of the canvas/Dusty golden tints of marigolds brush against the horizon of a morning sky infused with cloud like dashes of white/A prismatic rainbow emits splashes of polychromatic pleasure on a bitter wasteland and pitifully gray atmosphere/Flooding the scene with profound vibrancy.

But this is only the calm before the storm.

iii.He salvages this remedy/As cathartic sensations possess every inch of his skin and grips his veins/Ridding him of his bruises and emotional scars/Making him wholesome once again/But the feeling is erased as quickly as it came because profuse sadness consumes him /Speckles of charcoal black paint and unappealing shades of gray fabricate a dreary rainstorm/and ashen tears dripping disconcertingly onto sidewalks

Soon he is caught in a raging squall

iv.All of a sudden the canvas cracks and splinters, ripping and self-demolishing as suddenly as the bright and bleak colors appear, seeping like rain into the soles of shoes, the livelihood of the piece is drained entirely/He tries to think clearly amidst the conflicting war raging in his mind/and in his heart/He attempts to breathe but is devoid of air/He tries to scream but is deprived of sound/And all he can do is stare with glassy eyes at the painting he ruined/Because alas, what a disaster/But as the moments pass his demeanor shifts/He becomes intrigued by the dismaying colors, captured by their vibrancy

But the storm begins to subside.

v.For now, it looks more…realistic/An accurate representation of the human soul, mirroring both good and evil/A true work of art/He comes to terms with the fact that art can be perfectly imperfect/Broken and still a beauty/And he is purged by overwhelming catharsis; for the first time in years he feels wholesome/He feels like himself/Simply because he enjoyed ruining the overvalued conventional idea of artistry/He knows he would do it a million times more/in the near and far future.

The skies have cleared.

The storm has passed.