It started at the end
when she walked away
Purple paint on his fingertips
His pockets full of clay

He's an artist
He thinks in strokes
She's a lover
She speaks in giggles and jokes

The sketchbooks form a pile
He's drunken all the wine
His hands are steady without hers holding them
He remembers how to draw in a straight line

If art comes from suffering
he's reached his prime
And since she's left him
He takes his time

The galleries are filled with her portraits
He memorized the contours of her face
Every sketch is an echo of her features
that he can't bring himself to erase
The paint is his tears and so he cries

It started two years in
At first they were just hints
The colors kept getting darker
Black was mixed with every tint

The slow distortion
The quiet craze
In the end she knew
this was no phase

For a while she ignored it
"I know we'll be alright"
People talked, she heard the whispers
In the end, she couldn't fight

It grew apparent
She was his muse
But he was rope soaked in kerosene
She saw the fuse

In the night she packed her bags
And stole a pen to prove her claim
While he worked inside his study
she disappeared into the rain
In the din of the storm she freely cried