Paint

1

There is paint on my floor, and I have yet to clean it up. It surrounds my newly painted canvas. Black streaks and smudges disturbing the cool, white-grey of my tiles. Someone knocked on my door. They asked why there was still paint on my floor. I think it was my mother, or maybe even my brother. What does it matter? I shrugged and told them that I would clean it up later.

So I sank back onto my bed and lay there. I stared up at the ceiling - the lights were on. When I closed my eyes, I could see coloured shapes. I felt out of sorts, somehow behind everything else. I felt inadequate and undone. Like I had to start all over again. But where is the starting line? Or the finishing line for that matter? And what kind of race is this, by the way?

My confusion lingered, as I drifted along my own endless thought stream. I seemed to think many nonsensical thoughts. It didn't get me anywhere - I still felt lost.

'But I needed to think', so I reasoned to myself. 'Think about what?' I asked. No reply. I lay on my bed just a while longer. Then he came along. He knocked on the door of my private thought room. And I let him in - how stupid! I watched his lips curve into my favourite smile. I saw his eyes twinkle. I heard him talk. But it was a buzz, a murmur. An inaudible, cryptic message. It probably meant nothing. Just wishful thinking. I shook my head and he left. I couldn't think of him - not in that way. Wasn't he my friend, or something?

I felt strange. I wanted to see him in my thought stream, but some other unidentifiable part of me did not. I wished momentarily I could go back to paint. Paint on my floor that had yet to be cleaned up. But distracted and useless, pathetic and muse less, I couldn't help myself.

I fell into an ocean deep of thoughts. But then I started drowning. And I realised, I was not in love with the person I'd imagined. Not in love at all.

There is paint on my floor. My thought stream has become shallow. I get up from my bed. It's time to clean up my mess.