Framing Yourself

I will not read this out loud. It is not spoken-word. Instead, it will rest inside the reader’s head until they wake up one day and a reminder goes off that they have seen this same moment before in writing. Literature, poetry, philosophy, or just plain memory thrown at a wall to stick around our thoughts like an old painting of an old man in an old sweater in a tiny modern home where guests dismiss it for hanging there instead of inside their oversized house, a better fit in their library where nobody goes to read out loud but just to look. Every guest thinks they recognize the painting from somewhere but it is actually not hung on the wall; it is literally painted within a frame onto the wall to seem like a painting on canvas that could be moved from its origin. It will never be removed from that place nor painted over, unless by the artist’s successor. If the painting becomes a national treasure, people will come to look knowing they can’t take it home at any price so they will find a way to remove the entire wall for prosperity. That is the intent of the artist, to be gone and then pursued. The painting is distinguishable from today’s art even though it is created by nobody who is known by everybody, in his overconfidence. The man in the painting is familiar though because he exudes the era of its depiction, the era of baroque masterpieces where dark paint is illuminated by figures whether ghastly or angelic. The angelic subject stands out from modern form; but still he is wearing a sweater. If the painter was really known by anybody instead of everybody in his own delight he would be exposed as the man in the painting as indicated by his ghastly sweater, a reflection of his hope in the darkness of his solitude. The man who painted the wall within a frame, framing himself, that only he would see if left up to him, is a master and a masterpiece. He protects himself by not speaking a word of it. The artist will not be seen nor heard until he becomes the reader and the writer becomes the guest. Only then will the wall be ready for a new coat of paint and the sweater put to rest.