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Can you hold a brush, again?

When it is quietly taken away

Empirical Backyard in Weeds & Wildflowers · 2026-07-06 20:10 · 150 claps · 1.5 min read paywalled
#painting #mindfulness #travel-writing #inspiration #writing
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Can you hold a brush, again?

When it is quietly taken away

A window- Image by Author

A window- Image by Author

I have painted a window. A window I cannot write anything about. A window I would gift to the lover I could never love in the way they deserved.

I want to take a train to stop the chain of my thoughts. And losing control gradually is the beauty we choose to be deprived of.

The sky became a little wider. The vultures became friends while my taste buds were busy sipping caffeine. The streams finally held water that wasn’t salty at all. The bittersweet memories of the returned letters resurfaced. The life I had lived so far was no longer the same.

Why did I stop painting that window? Why did I stop painting at all? As life passes before my eyes, it slowly takes away the brush…

Instead, the mirage of greed — the desire to preserve at any cost — catches the eye. Nobody tells you that your legs may tremble again. And though demons may pull the ground from beneath your feet, you never stop dancing on their tune.

Knowing the roots of existence made me retrace the path. And more often than not, the path itself is not wrong; it is you who choose to drive on the wrong side.

Is it all because I boarded the train I otherwise never would have?

The more you try to step away from the life you have built for yourself, the more you subtract your old self-image from who you are. And this new version, does dare to shock you.

The one who could have said goodbye, but chose not to. And the flower in your backyard still writes poetry in the memory of that goodbye.

A painting of a window reflects that poetry, and all of it resonates with the white peaks sending clouds toward your balcony, hovering around your cup of coffee.

Once in a while, the pain that brought out the worst in you also made you a little more beautiful than you were yesterday.

© Empirical Backyard 2026. All Rights Reserved.


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