“I guess,” you say. “Kind of… Joan Mitchell-like.”
“I’ll have to look her up,” he says. You know he means it.
Just because love was something you’ve forgotten the shape of doesn’t mean he had too. You had loved him once, back when you saw everything full hue instead of deeply tinted with gray. Maybe you could again, if you could push far enough through the smog.
You say, “I haven’t been very nice to you lately, have I?”
“You’ve been depressed.” He meant that with a capital D.
You press the back of your hand to your mouth, transferring paint to your lips by accident, the taste base and chemical.
“I want to love things again,” you say, although want, in itself, isn’t enough. You can “want” out of your allergies or back pain, but that doesn’t heal you. But want is more than what you had yesterday, this morning, an hour ago.
He looks at you with a softness in his eyes. Yesterday, this morning, an hour ago, you would’ve interpreted it as a vacant look, looking beyond you, his mind busy with elsewhere more interesting. Right now, because you’re feeling good enough (not good, not better, but good enough) you had remembered what the little dip in his eyelids meant: he wasn’t just looking at you now, but at you past, present, and future. You hadn’t been able to accept yourself as even a paint smear recently; how were you to believe someone else saw you as the Louvre?
“What’s different today?” he asks. “From other days.”
From yesterday, this morning, an hour ago.
What answer do you have to give? Maybe your brain is on your side today, balancing out. Or maybe the medicine is kicking in. Or maybe a melodious echo from the past reminded you who you used to be and who you used to want to be. Or, a fortuitous combination.
You turn back to your painting-creation. This is it. Every meal your mother ever cooked you. Every laugh a friend ever dragged out of your chest. Every memory imprinted in your head, and every one you imprinted in someone else’s: a bad painting, a catchy pop song echoing in your ear, a dance just for the sake of dancing, all the things that exist because you make them exist.