The Woman In The Painting

Describes the Woman In The Painting in my room hanging over my bed.

She stands still, ethereal, on that balcony;

the lulling sound of the ocean waves,

the comfort of the warming sun,

her white summer dress gently pressed against her body by a light and steady ocean breeze,

the sweetness of a breeze that implores her to close her eyes,

the saltiness of a breeze that gently forces her to dive inward, to surrender to herself.

She stands still as she travels far in the only place where it all exists, where she can be who she was and who she is, where she can change it all, if she so desires. Here, deep in her thoughts, dimensions blur, desires defeat restraints, time is not definable. Here, and only here she finds freedom.

She is suddenly a little girl, singing and swinging in her backyard. She only knows innocent sadness, her smile is hopeful, and her mind overflowing with potential dreams. She finds so much comfort in this one memory where the unknown future is a friendly companion. She could stay in this moment, but it is the incessant echo of another moment that keeps drawing her to it.

She is standing, looking at him, the only man that might have authentically loved her. He sits at the sunny morning kitchen table, he is talking to her, desperately trying to reach the part of her that keeps hurting him.  He wants to mend the part of her that is broken, shattered, that overshadows all that is good, all that he loves. She so wants to change, but somehow, she knows that she is hopeless, that this man will have to walk away and leave her behind.

Soon he will be gone, and she insistently looks at him, she obsesses over every little detail, she can’t afford to forget any of it, she needs to be able to always see that face, the face of the man that she loves but won’t allow to love her.

He is beautiful! He sits there wearing a white ribbed tank top, sleep just leaving his eyes, taking sips of coffee and talking to her. His hands move about following the intent of his words and from time to time he runs his fingers through his wild red hair, moving it away from his face as it stubbornly keeps falling forward.

He has fair skin and freckles as one would anticipate with red hair, but not too many freckles just a few unexpected and strategically placed to draw your attention.

He has beautiful blue eyes and not just because they look like the ocean but because they possess the same immensity and depth of it. She can lose herself in those eyes, eyes that have shared so much with her. In those eyes she had seen the excited curiosity of a child, the sadness of loss, the turbulence of melancholy, the empathy of kindness, the brightness of intellectual ramblings, the madness of passionate desire, the purity of love. She had seen so much in those eyes; it was in them that she had seen the only reflection of herself she could accept and even appreciate.

He keeps talking and she looks at his lips forming the words leaving his mouth.

He has full, generous, seductive lips of an inviting shade of pink, both soft and firm, sinfully shaped, with a small inconspicuous scar rendering them daring, adventurous. When he pauses in between thoughts, in between sentences, his lips have a way of just remaining slightly parted suggesting he has more to say. Those lips just demand her undivided attention, she wants to kiss those lips, the lips that have kissed almost every part of her body that have made her quiver with desire, that have made her want him, that have made her crave him.

She looks at his arms, long strong reassuring arms, that have made her long to be wrapped by them. She wants to throw herself in those arms, where she feels safe, at home and at peace.

He keeps talking to her, but she is distracted from him, by him.

She wishes she could stop herself from destroying this love, she wishes she could be only the good in her, that she could eradicate every thought and feeling that force her to erase what they have.

 

What happened to her? How could she have become so cruel, so obstinate in sharing her misery?

She had relinquished all control to the wounded part of her, to the pain she had inside. She hurt not to be hurt. She feared the shock of sudden loss so she ensured it would be expected.

He did walk away and all she has left is this perfect portrait of the man she once loved, and she is grateful for it.

She often stops to revisit this moment in time, and here, in her thoughts, where everything is possible, she can’t let herself change what happened, because if she did, she may never want to leave that illusion behind.

 

It is this one sobering thought that always forces her outward and she opens her eyes.

She walks away from that balcony,

from the lulling sound of the ocean waves,

from the comfort of the warming sun.

She walks away as her mind stands still.