Ugly

Although this may not be pleasant writing, I feel that it is necessary writing.  Necessary for me to write, certainly, and maybe even crucial for you to read?  We tend too often to bottle up the ugly things for fear of looking weak, or fear of feeling ashamed, or fear of offending, or even for fear of simply feeling.  When so often what goes unsaid, or unwritten, or even unpainted, may just be the salve we need…

I do not pretend to be passively unaltered and untainted by my past.  I will be the first to admit that I am scarred.  And broken.  And I have to be okay with that.  Because it is what is.  So once again I bare a little part of my heart and soul to you, my reader, in this piece which I have titled, “Ugly”.

                                 Ugly 

If I could paint a picture of you it would be ugly.  

So very ugly.  

But I can only paint pretty things, and with not very much detail.  

I am not a highly trained artist who can paint small ugly details that come together as one giant mass of ugly, to which anyone could plainly see was you.  

I can only use hues that dance together and catch the light and please the eye.  

I can only paint things like trees and flowers and old proud barns, that notwithstanding the difficulties they encounter along the way turn into things of great beauty and light.  

My hand and eye are not gifted enough to paint the gnarly, twisted branches of a thorny tree that died an early death because it could never reach the light.  

Nor can I use colors that clash and hurt the eyes of the innocent, unsuspecting viewer, colors that were never meant to share a canvas.  

So, I think I will not even try to paint a picture of you.  

Because who wants to paint a picture that can only turn out ugly?