Je t'aime.

*Painting by Noël Skryzypczak 

I’ve been telling everyone just how sacred this inspiration thing is. It’s something constantly there, but at the same time, it’s something you need to work for. In order for it to catch fire in the soul, you’ve got to be willing to see it, and share it with all those rare doves that seem to fly inwardly within you.

Alex kept talking about the art projects he had stashed in his head, and I knew that I was somehow triggering the mad ocean that was rushing out of him. I knew just as well, that his words got me drinking toxic and talking in poem. 

He made some mention of painting in subtleties. There was that whole idea that one should leave their mark lightly, achingly, almost fragile, and not quite definitive. He asked me if I had ever sculpted things with modeling clay and asked me to remember the canvas of white atmosphere. “Now what happens when you mix other colors with that pale luminescence?”, he pushed. Stunned with the gravity of what it was he was trying to say, I just let my body scream in epiphany. Innately he knew what I must be feeling though, because he never waited for an answer. “They ever so timidly mix and taint the white honey. The colors bleed something ephemeral and you’re left with the pain of it all. And oh my god, that’s beautiful, that’s the nirvana you want forever.”

Later that night I found old video footage of the Elysian Fields concert I attended in October. In the pixelated picture, there was the face of the moon boy, I spent the evening writing about. The stranger in the black suit coat, with the bushy hair and the cup of whiskey clasped in one hand. His face was different on camera. The mystery was forced out the limbs in a different way. In one snippet, I could see the shadow of me — a black blurred ghost with some shrunken quality that penetrated and formed a cave. There in the milk of my curiosity was a warm blanket of sincere love. I can only respect that now.