Art & Soul

by Brittainy C. Cherry

“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”-Marcus Aurelius

1. the quality of an object or substance with respect to light reflected by the object, usually determined visually by measurement of hue, saturation, and brightness of the reflected light; saturation or chroma; hue. 2. Her. 3. Me. 4. Us. 1 Levi, Seventeen Years Old

a two volume Oxford English Dictionary. Each day during homeschooling, Mom would have me flip through the books and find ten new words that I didn’t know and then we would use them in songs that we wrote together.

but when your heart is under attack, only a few people can put a shield of protection around said heart.

If there were a list of the top five oxymorons in the world it would look like this: Great Depression. Tragic comedy. Original copy. Jumbo shrimp. Levi Myers.

“What does ubiquitous mean?” “It was my word of the day this morning. It means being everywhere. Very timely.

“For the record,” he spoke softly, “people like me find people like you refreshing.”

I’d become great at smiles. I hid behind them to make sure no one ever realized how shitty my life was. Smiling was a way to avoid people asking questions.

The stares and whispers were the worst of all.

“Do you have many superpowers?” “Just wait and see, Aria Watson. Just wait and see.”

Was Levi Myers real? Did he really exist? Or did my sad, black heart create him because it longed for a little bit of color?

Mom told me that we were supposed to respect nature. She said if we didn’t need it to eat, then we shouldn’t harm it.

‘Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.’

I want you to know that this thing between us, it’s powerful. There’s no word to express this new found connection we have, Aria. It’s like dividing by zero…you can’t define it.”

“‘The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane,’”

Me: Art – noun | [\ˈärt\] : The quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. Aria: I like that. Me: I think you’re art.

crazy | adjective | cra·zy | \krā-zē\ Mentally deranged, demented, insane. Senseless, impractical; totally unsound. Likely to break or fall to pieces. Weak, infirm, or sickly.

“That’s the thing about lives. We’re all so tangled up with one another, but at the same time, we’re very much alone.”

“You can be sad with me,”

Me: Goodnight, Art. Aria: Goodnight, Soul.

Alcohol has a way of making the nicest people turn into assholes sometimes.”

A person who never truly lost themselves could never truly find themselves, either.

Sometimes it was so easy to forget that adults were just kids in bigger bodies, and their hearts broke just like ours.

Maybe it’s okay to no longer be the person we thought we were meant to be. Maybe it’s okay to just be who we are now and accept that.”

“That’s the thing about the future, and the past even. They don’t exist in this moment. We only have the here and now. If we focus too much on the past or too heavily on the future, we miss out on our present desires, the things we want right now.”

“It’s weird the way you can walk by people every single day of your life and never truly know their story.”

Aria? She made sense in a senseless world. She was the rainbow to my everlasting thunderstorms.

Levi: Thinking – noun| [thing-king] : the action of using your mind to produce thoughts. Levi: Of – preposition | [uhv, ov; unstressed uhv or, esp. before consonants, uh] : used to indicate specific identity or a particular item within a category. Levi: You – pronoun|[yoo; unstressed yoo, yuh] : Aria Lauren Watson.

“You’re staring at me.” “I know. I swear I’ve been trying to stop, but when I stare at you something weird happens.” “And what’s that?” “My mind shuts up.”

“Love openly,” my heart whispered. “Love unconditionally,” my heart begged. “Love the struggles,” my heart taught. “Love in the moment.”

It was something ugly and beautiful all at once, wasn’t it? How your heart didn’t give a damn what your head wanted.

“Whoever made you doubt how amazing you are, whoever broke your heart…I’m going to hate them for a long time.”

Maybe it wasn’t about fixing the broken hearts. Maybe it was about loving the broken pieces the way they were.

Maybe when someone you loved was hurting, all they needed was someone to hold their pinkie as a reminder that they weren’t alone.

I want to play music, and think about you. Because when I think about you the world seems better.

“Then I remember that my thoughts can’t be about you because you’re not mine. You’re nothing but a dream. And I’m not the guy who gets to dream. I only get the nightmares.”

Don’t let me keep dreaming. Make me wake up.”

The colors in both of our eyes bled out, knowing that sometimes the most beautiful pieces of art were created from the darkest of souls.

There were over six hundred thousand words in the Oxford Dictionary. That meant there were six hundred thousand definitions of different words with a million and one meanings. Some words were silly while others were heartbreaking. Some words were happy while others were angry. So many different letters came together in different ways to form those different words, those unique meanings.

Aria: I – noun, often capitalized, often attributive \ˈī\ : Aria Lauren Watson. Aria: Miss – verb \ˈmis\ : To feel the absence of. Aria: You – pronoun | [yoo; unstressed yoo, yuh] : Levi Wesley Myers. Miss you, too, Aria Lauren Watson. But I couldn’t tell her that, even though it was true.

You taught me that. Abstract art can be as true as realistic art, as long as it finds the courage to speak its colors into the world with genuine honesty.”

“One truth stings far less than a thousand lies.”

“It just so happens that sometimes the right thing sucks.”

“We’ll be all right,” he promised me. “Just not today.”

“But if I learned anything about the future, it’s that it doesn’t matter. The future’s not real. So it’s best to live in the here and now with you.”