Heal Thyself
And Other Tales of Failed Bootstrapping
Art Therapy has always perplexed me.
Why would you prescribe a thing,
That murders all who are great at it?
The point of art is not to heal.
It is to turn the terminal cancer racing through you
Into Michelangelo's David.
The blood from your mortal wound,
Into the paint of the Mona Lisa.
The tears you can't ever stop,
Into the ink of Medea.
To be an artist is not to heal thyself.
That is the realm of physicians.
To be an artist is not to recover.
That is the passtime of addicts.
To be an artist is to turn the gun,
To fully automatic,
Emptying magazine after magazine,
Into your own,
Twisted,
Guts.
To then root around in the mess it left,
Coughing and choking out your agony.
Using blood slick fingers,
Intensifying your own suffering.
Pulling out bullet, after bullet.
Individually,
one by one.
Hammering their spent death
Into something,
That one day,
A lonely girl will see in a museum.
That some sad boy will find in a $1 box at a yard sale.
That your own child will find in the wreckage you left behind.
It will halt them
Speak to them.
Whisper to them what they needed to hear.
Yearned to hear.
It will consume them,
For a moment,
For an hour,
For a lifetime.
It will heal them.
To be an artist is not to heal yourself.
It is to destroy,
Everything you are.
So that,
Maybe,
One day,
You can heal another.
About the Creator
Paige Graffunder
Paige is a published author and a cannabis industry professional in Seattle. She is also a contributor to several local publications around the city, focused on interpersonal interactions, poetry, and social commentary.
Comments (1)
I disagree, but love your poem.