Annie AbuHamad

When they talk about the tortured genius, somebody always brings up Van Gogh— how he swallowed yellow paint because he wanted to put the sunshine inside himself. How his psychosis was probably the result of lead poisoning. They call him a miracle, but what I see is a man who was so sad, he found a beautiful way to kill himself.   They say, “it’s awful isn’t it?” They say, “It’s always the talented ones who go before their time.” And me, a nine year old kid who’s always been told they were so talented wonders when I am going to die.   We study them in school, the tortured artists. Look at all the poets who killed themselves what would their work have been without their depression? It’s it beautiful, isn’t it sad? As if depression is a parlor trick— pull it out at parties, impress all your friends. As if depression isn’t seeing how long you can go between showers before somebody notices or pizza rolls for dinner three nights in a row and then nothing the night after, because going to the store is an impossibility that you have not yet gathered the courage to conquer.   It is the least beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and we call it the mark of an artist to stand in the center of an ocean and see nothing but desert. To be seated at a feast, but still swallowing sand.   Depression is the yellow paint, the yellow paint, THE YELLOW PAINT, THE YELLOW PAINT, THE YELLOW PAINT, THE YELLOW PAINT, THE YELLOW PAINT, THE YELLOW PAINT, THE YELLOW PAINT—   Art is a coping mechanism. Van Gogh is good because when he had nothing, he had paint. When he was empty, he had paint. When the world was awful, he had paint. When he hated himself, he didn’t hate the paint. He whitewashed over his own masterpieces, because it was never about being famous, it was about doing the one thing that made sense when everything else didn’t.   And they say, “without his illness, we never would have gotten all—this.” because they value his art more than his sanity because god forbid you lead a happy life and leave nothing to remember you by.