two paintings
by Zia Musgrave
Staring at her all the way across this empty room feels like riding a massive wave in a storm ridden ocean. One moment I’m thrown into the air by its powerful current, caressed by its loving wind, carried up, up and up until all I can see is the golden sun lighting up the clouds. And then comes the fall. That dreadful lurch in my gut as I cascade through the storm with its stinging rain bullets and hit the water feeling like my skin has been torn off. The plunge is a sorrowful thing, but no matter how much my chest burns as the cold water chokes my lungs, the fear is never complete because I know that soon I will be thrown back into the sky.
We have been like this all of our lives. Crafted by a careful, sad hand with careful, sad colors that melted together at the edges, and then hung there on the wall to gaze forever at one another. All I know are the smooth curves of her shoulder blades, her milky white skin, and that longing look over her shoulder at where I hang across the dark room. I hope that I am looking back at her with that same love, but I will never know. What does it matter what I am when she is a masterpiece?
This existence is simple and quiet. We never speak–we cannot–but I see her left eye, the only one I’ve ever seen, and her twinkling soul floating in the blue. When those hands that crafted us return, they make more creations and hang them around her like an audience. Their anguished faces, torn by blackberry thorns, choked by ivory strings, watch her with hatred and envy. They may share her milk-skin and her blue eyes, but they are nothing like her. Her sad eyes may drag me into the ocean's depths, but to her crowd the mere chance to long for something is better than the prisons our maker has put them in. I do not wonder what audience watches me, because I am only watching her.
And there we hang. I fall and I rise, but at least I never have to look away from her beautiful face.
Photo fo Zia Musgrave
BIO: Zia Musgrave is an 18-year-old writer. She is a lover of stories, whether that be print or tv. She dreams of seeing her name in the after credits of a movie and the cover of a New York Times bestseller. She believes that the world desperately needs more whimsy, and she intends to always contribute to that cause in her lifetime.