I've Told You, Nobody Becomes An Artist

How Could Anybody Confuse Truth With Beauty, I Thought As I Looked At Him. Truth Came With Sunken Eyes, Bony Or Scarred, Decayed. Its Teeth Were Bad, Its Hair Gray And Unkempt. While Beauty Was Empty As A Gourd, Vain As A Parakeet. But It Had Power. It Smelled Of Musk And Oranges And Made You Close Your Eyes In A Prayer.

Aquamarines Grew With Emeralds, Claire Told Me. But Emeralds Were Fragile And Always Broke Into Smaller Pieces, While Aquamarines Were Stronger, Grew In Huge Crystals Without Any Trouble, So They Weren't Worth As Much. It Was The Emerald That Didn't Break That Was The Really Valuable Thing.

They Wanted The Real Mother, The Blood Mother, The Great Womb, Mother Of Fierce Compassion, A Woman Large Enough To Hold All The Pain, To Carry It Away. What We Needed Was Someone Who Bled...mother's Big Enough, Wide Enough For Us To Hide In...mother's Who Would Breathe For Us When We Could Not Breathe Anymore, Who Would Fight For Us, Who Would Kill For Us, Die For Us.

I've Told You, Nobody Becomes An Artist Unless They Have To.

We Read So That We Can Be Moved By A New Way Of Looking At Things.