Before the third episode of the Philippines Graphic Literary Workshop (PGLW) concluded on April 18, we knew that we had one more thing that we can offer our bright young fellows: a starting platform for their creative endeavors. Here, we present one of their final outputs from the workshop. We also asked them to provide an artwork that they think best represents their stories. Read on.
Roses are red, bruises are blue.
10 minutes left before I leave the house. I go to the mirror to check my scars. I think it got worse. Scars painting my skin maroon and needling my neck like a thorn. I decided to open my concealer, a new bottle I bought the day after the thorn tore my neck, making sure it would match the shade of my skin. I shaded it upward and downward like using a brush in a painting, my favorite thing to do ever since childhood. I love looking at the flowers in our garden and I wanted it to paste in my wall. So I painted them with a paint I bought from the first money I received from my mother.
“It looks so nice, Rosie! Just as beautiful as your name.” My mom said with her endearing voice.
“Thanks, Mama! Do you think he would like this?”
“I think so, yes! He would definitely like you now because of this painting.”
I had loved him since childhood. Afterall, he was the only guy of my age in the neighborhood. His eyes. His ever-so-delicate eyes. Oh, so wonderful to look at. It was the second thing I always wanted to look at when I was a teenager.
“Hey, I actually want to give you this. I painted it for you!” It was a small portrait of him, the first and last time I ever painted a person. It also has a garden of roses in the background, so it was basically me merging two of my favorite things in a single canvas.
“Thank you, Rosie! I appreciate this. I’ll see you next time.” He winked. Winked with his ever-so-delicate eyes. Then passed by me and never looked back.
It was the first time my face turned red. Does he like me too? Oh, I hope he does.
One thing led to another and in two months we were already together. We go on dates. Ice cream dates. Movie dates. Park dates. Dates in his room where typical exploration of life begins. It was fun. It was the perfect relationship.
The streaks of the concealer are not too convincing. I patched it with a sponge just so it looks real, and set the renovated color of my neck with a powder. I also noticed the bruises on my face were still there. Fortunately, it was not that harsh.
I looked at the clock to make sure I still had time. 7 minutes left. I put some band-aids on each mark on my face, and ended up sparkling it with pimple patches so people would think it’s just a simple acne. No scars. No bruises. Not anything that will imply harm. I finished patching my face in 2 minutes. 5 minutes left or I will be late to the dean.
“Why do you always bring a red pencil in your pocket? Looks stupid to me.” We were lying on my bed in my room full of palettes and rainbows. There were brushes and palettes on the side table, a canvas beside my bed, and different pencils on the table of my vanity mirror. It was my whole life anyways — him and these paintings.
“Love, you know I always bring it so I can draw some roses, right? It’s my favorite thing.”
“Do you really love painting so much with these pencils and brushes? Looks like a waste of space. Can’t you just throw it away?” He seemed annoyed but I brushed it off.
“But I love it as much as I love you.”
“And if you love me, you understand what I am trying to say, right? Right, Rosie?” I know what he’s talking about, but my mind cannot accept it. He’s convincing me with his ever-so-delicate eyes in something I do not ever want to leave. “You need to focus on what’s better for you — For us.” He held my chin so we could look eye to eye.
Silence. I don’t know what to say. Why does he want me to choose? Wasn’t these colors the very reason our love began?
“…Yes, sure.” I stammered. As much as I want to disagree with him, I don’t want him to be mad.
He hugged me so tight as if he didn’t want me to break free. “I love you, Rosie. Forever and ever.”
4 minutes left when I saw the reflection of my canvas from the mirror, hanging on the punched wall with its frame crooked. The last painting I ever did 10 years ago, before I decided to join him in the same college program so we can be together. It’s not Fine Arts — it’s Political Science, where I was taught that all people do to be successful is lie, lie, and lie. The canvas is a burgundy rose with thorns, with butterflies beneath its petals, ever-so-delicate than any other flower. Yet my blood stained it more crimson, creating different shades of red on my creation.
“Don’t be sad about it, Rosie. That degree is impractical anyways. We will have a great future here. I assure you that.” He held my hand giving me assurance that he would never leave me. I guess he’s right.
3 minutes left. I looked for my ID but it’s nowhere to be found in the vanity. My face there is not ruined as now, just like the rose in the wall before the thorn tore its frame. We were now both in law school and this will be the first time I will go back after the thorn tore my neck. What our friends know is I went out with him that night, then I will tell him the truth that I plan to go out of the country to pursue an Arts degree, a dream that I have always dreamt of ever since. Even before I decided to paint that ever-so-delicate rose. Even before I fell in love with his ever-so-delicate eyes.
But perhaps he loved me so much that he does not want me to go. Then he hugged my neck with his fingers until the blood painted my neck and face like a thorn tearing a petal of a rose.
“No one is leaving the country, Rosie. You will stay here and be with me!” He pinned me to the painting hanging on the wall. The ever-so-delicate rose is now wrecked and cannot be turned back into life.
Blood spread on my head and neck because of the impact. It hurts. It stings. I cannot breathe. Will this be my last breath? I need to get out.
“I still even let you paint, Rosie! And you are still leaving me?” His ever-so-delicate eyes were not so delicate this time. His gaze was sharp like a thorn piercing my heart from agony.
“Let me go, please.”
“I even told you to throw away those stupid pencils and brushes, and you did not listen!”
“Please stop!” I cannot take this anymore.
“You don’t need these brushes, pencils, and paints. This will not give you life! I will-”
And perhaps I loved him so much that I pierced him too with my own thorns. Blood teared from his ever-so-delicate eyes with the very red pencil he hated I had in my pocket. The pencil I always bring to draw the sketch of crimson roses, drew crimson blood for the first time.
1 minute left before I need to leave. I go outside of the room to look for my ID before I leave to go to campus and talk with the dean about my withdrawal as a student. However, I see more blood reeking in the crevices of the tiles. I have already concealed it last night, but I guess I still need to do some cleaning.
Every piece of him went to the fireplace that night. Everything that defined who he was. Everything that he defined of me. For the last time, I inhaled his pungent smell far from the fragrance of an ever-so-delicate rose.
5 seconds left before I need to leave the house, but I still need to fix these.
“I guess I will be late at school today.”
Maria Shannen Bea Villanueva
