Raz
Bluelighter
I'm useless, but not for long...my future is coming on.
Too skinny and little and living in backstreets where nobody ventures. I saw your art on all the walls and I wish I could remember it now; there's a sadness that I don't remember.
I heard the hiss of paint.
You were there then and I was struck by how fragile you were. I was struck by how bony you were and the way your wrists and elbows jutted and your clothes were too big for you. Your hair was black and oily and slick and your skin was the color of malt and your lazy black eyes weren't staring at anything in particular but there was intelligence somewhere in there.
You were happy to see me then.
I remember your smile and no defences up and that vulnerability was so endearing. I wanted to watch you sleep so I could see you happy and I wanted to take you away from it and I wanted to give you something other than life in the backstreets.
I told you how talented you were.
You were taken aback. It made me ache to realise that you hadn't actually expected me to give you the time of day. You had presented yourself openly not out of optimism or naivete, you just didn't expect to get out of this unscathed. You just didn't care. It surprised you that someone would care.
I felt like you were my little brother.
I thought about my nephews while you deflected my compliments, and I wondered how I would feel to see them out here with a bag of wet paint clutched at their side and a mouth chromed purple. I wondered why your family weren't here to help you.
I couldn't leave you then.
I unzipped my backpack and I took out my sketchbook and my pen and I showed you my drawings. You were so excited that I would share that. You had so much fucking enthusiasm under that haze and I felt so fucking helpless.
I felt so fucking helpless.
I tried to draw you something, something you could take with you to remember that someone cared. I wanted to open some door, I wanted to show you something you could relate to so that you could maybe be a boy again and not something in decay. I just wanted to help. So I drew and I kept my head down and I concentrated and I wanted this to be good, I wanted this to be the thing to get through, but the whole time I could hear this hiss, this intermittent hiss and the sound of rustling plastic and the stink of paint in the air, and everything I made for you turned to crap.
It all turned to crap.
I kept trying, but nothing came. Every line I drew was wrong, was not good enough, and I would look up to apologise every now and then, and you would lose more of that spark every time I looked, and your eyes would be more dead. In the end you weren't there. You'd gotten bored waiting for me. Or maybe you were just too fucked to remember why you were sitting in a lane with some stranger in the first place and you'd taken your bag of wet paint and your mouth chromed purple and wandered away.
Either way you were gone.
I sat there and let the remaining fumes punish me for a while. Eventually I got up and left the backstreets and I went home. I went home and I forgot your art and I never even knew your name.
I never even knew your name.
Too skinny and little and living in backstreets where nobody ventures. I saw your art on all the walls and I wish I could remember it now; there's a sadness that I don't remember.
I heard the hiss of paint.
You were there then and I was struck by how fragile you were. I was struck by how bony you were and the way your wrists and elbows jutted and your clothes were too big for you. Your hair was black and oily and slick and your skin was the color of malt and your lazy black eyes weren't staring at anything in particular but there was intelligence somewhere in there.
You were happy to see me then.
I remember your smile and no defences up and that vulnerability was so endearing. I wanted to watch you sleep so I could see you happy and I wanted to take you away from it and I wanted to give you something other than life in the backstreets.
I told you how talented you were.
You were taken aback. It made me ache to realise that you hadn't actually expected me to give you the time of day. You had presented yourself openly not out of optimism or naivete, you just didn't expect to get out of this unscathed. You just didn't care. It surprised you that someone would care.
I felt like you were my little brother.
I thought about my nephews while you deflected my compliments, and I wondered how I would feel to see them out here with a bag of wet paint clutched at their side and a mouth chromed purple. I wondered why your family weren't here to help you.
I couldn't leave you then.
I unzipped my backpack and I took out my sketchbook and my pen and I showed you my drawings. You were so excited that I would share that. You had so much fucking enthusiasm under that haze and I felt so fucking helpless.
I felt so fucking helpless.
I tried to draw you something, something you could take with you to remember that someone cared. I wanted to open some door, I wanted to show you something you could relate to so that you could maybe be a boy again and not something in decay. I just wanted to help. So I drew and I kept my head down and I concentrated and I wanted this to be good, I wanted this to be the thing to get through, but the whole time I could hear this hiss, this intermittent hiss and the sound of rustling plastic and the stink of paint in the air, and everything I made for you turned to crap.
It all turned to crap.
I kept trying, but nothing came. Every line I drew was wrong, was not good enough, and I would look up to apologise every now and then, and you would lose more of that spark every time I looked, and your eyes would be more dead. In the end you weren't there. You'd gotten bored waiting for me. Or maybe you were just too fucked to remember why you were sitting in a lane with some stranger in the first place and you'd taken your bag of wet paint and your mouth chromed purple and wandered away.
Either way you were gone.
I sat there and let the remaining fumes punish me for a while. Eventually I got up and left the backstreets and I went home. I went home and I forgot your art and I never even knew your name.
I never even knew your name.
