I require a creative outlet, some paper and a pen. I must throw words at unlined cellulose and muck it up with deep, uneven clumps. I need to build up a new perspective from a barren scene. I have to play God for an instant, and assuage my sins. Play my anger and grief off as faultless, and my impatience as righteous.

Understand, this is not my hobby. This is not my way of passing the time between work and sleep. This is my salvation. It is necessary. For I find it hard to breathe in your world. The air is viscous and pools in the back of my throat. The sun is so very bright and the colors so damn dramatic. Without this reprieve, I am stricken. Supine, I gulp frantically at the air, begging it into my lungs. While inky curtains battle the sun, and walls, grey as death, bar color from my presence.

Allow me this. Grant me sanctuary in my manufactured delusion. Let me remain ignorant of my sins, and breathe deeply in a world of my own making. Permit me to enjoy this sun, which shines without burning. Tolerate my vanity, and I will consent to you calling it art.

– Felipe