Cleopatra and Frankenstein

by Coco Mellors

What scared her was that recently it was easier to imagine the opening than the actual paintings. She worried that she was one of those artists who care more about being an artist than they do about making art.

Fun was fine when you were young, but as you got older it was kindness that counted, kindness that showed up.

Cleo understood why bikes were so often described as freedom; not for their ability to take you elsewhere, but for the way they transformed the place you already were.

I tell him I think that’s a good thing to hope for in life, for the carpet to grow thin before you.

She wanted someone to tell her who to be.

A coffin riddled with bullet holes spun in a slow orbit from a thick metal chain suspended above a mound of broken mirrors. She looked down and saw hundreds of fragments of her face reflected back, a sliver of cheek, of throat, of eye. Who was she? An artist who didn’t make art. A wife without a husband. A child with no mother.

“What do you do not to feel sad?” I ask. “I let myself feel sad.” *

Talented people were often unhappy, but unhappy people were not often talented.