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How Am I?

I am not one feeling.
I am a palette that keeps changing.
Some mornings arrive in soft blues,
heavy but gentle, like a sky that hasn’t decided to rain.
Other days wake up sharp and red,
still tender where the hurt once lived,
still remembering what it cost to survive.

I am learning that healing is not a straight line.
It moves like color in water—
slow, unpredictable, refusing to stay where it’s placed.
There are moments I feel green and growing,
quietly rebuilding myself in places no one sees.
And there are moments when everything fades to gray,
not empty, just resting.

I carry my past in layers.
Pain sits underneath,
but it no longer controls the surface.
Each day, I add something new
a lighter shade, a softer edge,
a little more space to breathe.
I let myself feel without asking permission.
I let the colors come,
even the dark ones,
because they belong to me too.

Some days, I am bright enough to surprise myself.
Yellow shows up when I least expect it
in small joys, in quiet strength,
in the simple fact that I am still here.
Other days, I am unfinished,
smudged, uneven, unsure.
And that is also part of how I am.

So if you ask me today,
How are you?
I will not give you one word.
I will tell you this:
I am becoming.
I am healing in color.
I am alive,
and learning how to stay.

Smear the lines.
Let colors bleed where they shouldn’t.
Perfection is too clean to be honest.
Break the rules,
spill the feeling,
leave fingerprints on the moment.
Art begins
where control ends.

Begin at the ending.
Unlearn before you know.
Undo the rules you memorized
and trust the first instinct again.
Sometimes the right way forward
is to return to where you started
and see it differently.

I don’t fix things by hiding the cracks.
I paint through them.
I write where it still hurts,
until the broken parts feel seen.
Art doesn’t erase the damage
it makes room for healing.
Sometimes, that is enough to fix something.

I make a flag from what I survived.
Not for borders,
but for belonging.
Each color carries a truth,
each tear a memory.
I raise it quietly
a signal to myself:
I am still here,
and this ground is mine.

I plant a seed where I once broke.
Not to rush the bloom,
but to trust the waiting.
With quiet care and open hands,
I believe in what I cannot see yet
growth begins this way.

Anyone who listens to the urge to create.
Anyone who turns feeling into form,
questions into color,
silence into sound.
An artist is not chosen by permission,
but by practice
by showing up and making,
again and again.

I turn the page and find a pause.
Something unfinished waits there
a margin asking to be filled,
a thought mid-breath.
I don’t copy what’s written.
I answer it.
Page 37 becomes a doorway,
and I step through with my own marks.

I turn up what was whispered.
Color becomes a shout,
lines refuse to stay polite.
This is the sound of taking space
of saying I’m here
without lowering my voice.

I feed on light, on memory,
on the sweetness of small moments.
I taste the world and turn it into color
spice into spark,
salt into shadow,
sugar into softness.
What I consume becomes my canvas.
What I choose to hold
shapes what I become.

I let rhythm guide my hands.
A beat becomes a brushstroke,
a melody bends into color.
High notes lift the light,
low notes deepen the shadows.
I don’t paint the sound
I follow it,
until silence feels full.

I create in the margins of my day
while the kettle hums,
while thoughts wander,
while life keeps moving.
The work doesn’t wait
for perfect stillness.
It grows in the in-between,
quietly,
without asking for all of me
just enough.

I put on courage like a jacket,
tie intention at my waist.
Color waits for ceremony
for sleeves rolled,
for paint on skin.
When I dress for the making,
I become it.
Art begins
before the first mark.

I make something that does not ask to stay.
A line drawn in dust,
a shadow arranged by light,
a color that fades with evening.
It exists fully
and then it lets go.
Not everything is meant to last.
Some art is practice in release.

I don’t repaint history
to pretend it never hurt.
I soften the harsh edges.
I let light settle into the fractures.
Even old canvases
deserve a second becoming.