Can You Paint Me A Love Story?

On the corner of a busy and bustling city street, she saw him behind his easel as people hurriedly passed him by, almost as though he was fiercely guarded from the world around him. He smiled slightly as he clutched a paint brush in his hand and whistled a love song that could not be drowned out by the lively noises of the streets. With each brush stroke, he brought to life the waves of an ocean that were crashing harshly on the sands of a beach.

She stood silently as she watched him paint the seas that reflected the rising sun of the morning sky. She gazed longingly at the life he was creating by the mere strokes of his brush, and through the gentle whistles of his love songs. With a trouncing heart, she walked up to him, and through the shudders of her own voice, she asked him if he only painted scenes of the oceans and the skies? He lowered his brush and grinned, before he told her that for a few bucks, he would paint her anything she wanted.

She fell to her knees and grabbed his warm, brilliant hands. She stared at them, confident and hopeful that they would create a painting for her too. She asked him if he could paint her a love story? Without pausing to take a breath, she went on to describe how it should look, just like she had planned when she was only a little girl. She told him of a little blue house, a slight way out of town. She asked him to paint a porch with a swing, so that she could watch over her horses and gaze out onto her flower fields.

She begged him to paint her on that swing in a white cotton dress and make it the very first day of spring. She squeezed his hands tighter, and asked him again, to paint her a love story. He glowered when he noticed the despair in her persuasive eyes. He hurriedly seized a blank canvas and picked up his paint brush. He asked her where she would like him to place her love in the painting, and when she began to whimper softly, he knew he would have to be placed right beside her, where she needed him to be. She asked him if he could perhaps peek into her heart and see how it longs for the way it was before. Before, when her story was a painting that she had once owned. And then, she implored him to place her love’s arms back around her, just like it once was.

She told him how the bright sunrises contradict the dense mist that weighs down so heavily on her. She said that she needed him to paint the joyful sounds of the birds in the mornings, so that her heart could hear them once more. She gently whispered how she wondered why the world continued to turn, and that without her new painting, she was just not sure she could begin again. She asked him to add fireflies to brighten her darkest nights, and she told him to place the stars like a silvery gown around her. She said that she wanted to hang it above her big, empty bed where she feared the dark and dreaded the dawn, all at the same time.

She softly confessed that she reaches for her love in vain, and that she tearfully whispers his name, just as she is about to fall asleep. She reminded the artist not to forget to paint daffodils, so that she can smile instead of cry. She told him to take his time because at that very moment, her heart does not yet have a home, and that it is just a painting, until it becomes her love story.