LOVE ME LIKE A CURSE
I painted the fingers with painstaking care, each knuckle catching just the faintest glint of light.
And the eyes… I left them for last. Not because I didn’t know how to paint them, but because I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
When I finally did, I didn’t give them the usual clarity of gaze. Instead, I let them rest half-lidded, heavy with something unspoken. They weren’t closed, but they weren’t open to me either—just fixed somewhere.
I didn’t know how long I’d been painting until a distant bell rang . The sound broke the haze only slightly. My hands were trembling, my breath uneven, but the image was there now. Whole.