“Who are you? Who are you really?”

I’m staring at the face of my painting, but the expression feels flat.

“You know- you really could try to give me some clues. What are you thinking? What was your childhood like? What inspired you growing up? Do you like long walks out in nature- or do you prefer to stay inside?”

I get no answer

Which I guess isn’t unexpected. I’ve had many a conversation with this particular portrait. And despite my prying this one stays stubbornly quiet.

I sit staring at it on the floor, head in my hands, elbows on my knees. I search it’s eyes.

“Who are you?”

I think I drift off… but I open my eyes hazily to see that the portrait has changed. No, moved. I rub my eyes, and get up to closer inspect my work.

“You know sometimes I feel like I could scream and no one would hear me. No one would turn their heads or try blocking their ears because they are so consumed by their own lives to give one damn about the troubles of mine. I used to turn to my eisle and brush, oh! I remember the glorious day I first discovered that my hands could create the pain I felt inside. I found that colours could tell so very many stories- not even just wether it was purple or green or white, but how saturated, how vibrant, how many colours a painting portrayed could even leand a hand in showing how full my mind was with pain and chaos.

“I found that the harshness of my lines could tell stories too. The detail could scream. Even when my own voice fell on deaf ears.”

I tilt my head, and ask:

”Do you sometimes wish you could scream and be heard?”

This time my question causes my my painted subject to tilt their head in contemplation.

“Yes.”

Unfazed, I ask, “Why is it that no one feels they can be heard then?”

“I think that no matter how loudly we scream, it will never make a difference. It will never become anything more than a harsh plea for recognition.

“But I think that you already have caused things to change. Even if you yourself haven’t realised it.”

“And why is that?”

“Because it is not the thunder nor the lightning that grows the plants. But always the rain. And you have channelled your thunder into your art, and have let it be the rain that can cause real change. Even if it’s just for yourself”

My head slips from my hands and jolt awake. And I realise that it was sleep playing this facade the while time.

At my next meeting with my muse, I ask her this time.

“What has caused you in your life to wish more than anything to be heard?”

Her reply brings tears to my eyes to hear this woman’s suffering.

I create a work of art that incapsulates her hurt. I use my tears of understanding to help me use my pain too, and channel it into my painting.

“There you are. I was beginning to think I would never find out who you were.”