TTYL, Love You is a 100+ painting series originally started in 2023, while I lived in rural Kansas
The titles alone took over one year to collect, format, and organize. it is a story. beginning with “The Truth Never Makes Sense Until You Force It to, Just Like Anything,” and hopefully ending with the final painting. “I’m Glad I’m Alone, With All of My Dreams.”
Pieces 1-10
No. 1 The Truth Never Makes Sense until you force it to, just like Anything
No 2. She flipped me Alabaster and lukewarm, Steady
TTYL Love You #3 I got in her car and we drove around the lower town
#4 Dust playing off our skin in the warm nuclear light.
#5 I’d feel her walking across pavement, my feet vibrating in my shoes
#6 Our hands in our pockets. Alabaster and lukewarm.
#7 It smelled like dead plastic pine needles.
#8 Like a computer programmed only to feel sorry for itself
#9 We watched prank videos on his computer, laughing, even at the ones that twisted me.
#10 He rocked gently back and forth on my bed, staring at my walls. Never at me.
Pieces 11-20
#11 I never talked much either, but whenever I was with him, you couldn’t shut me up.
#12 Ever since the previous weekend, I couldn’t not worry about him
#13 swung the door open and shambled into wet fever night
#14 I nodded. I didn’t press it. I wanted him to keep liking me.
#15 I could feel him turning blue
#16 I slipped out through the screen door like a c-section
#17 we sat there in the grass, watching the pines turn to fireworks
#18 I reached the house, and no one was there.
#19 It felt like all the Earth’s oxygen was tearing apart.
#20 the lights looked like jellyfish and fireflies,
21-30
#21 Just then I decided I wanted to be buried at sea
#22 The air was like a flu and it twisted my dreams
#23 It was all dull, ruptured magic
#24 splattered clusters of pixels and polygons
#25 It mattered to us tremendously. We were children.
#26 I wasn't there but I can see it in my mind
#27 I could finally feel how little impact I’d ever have on the world
#28 The realization that I could simply leave and the world wouldn’t miss me.
#29 everyone around me felt as hollow as balloons.
#30 Sometimes it seemed like I was the only person who felt anything
31-40
#31 The house was like a twisted-up napkin
#32 My heart coiled and I began to shake.
#33 Every state I've lived in after California has just been a place I sleep for a while.
#34 I took a picture of myself and deleted it
#35 The painting looked like my insides. I couldn’t look away. I wanted to live inside it.
#36 Rain needled dense against our car
#37 His grin twisted my stomach, but I made myself be okay with it.
#38 What forces are we unable to sense that nonetheless influence our existence?
#39 I ran my palms up his arms, feeling the ribs of his scar tissue.
#40 My words became her pillows. Words that once belonged to her.
41-50
#41 Some nights I’d whisper to God. Vague, grey prayers.
#42 Making the world soft and bearable.
#43 The sun drowned behind the mountains
#44 Church was a Mirror of Home
#45 He had this one song that made my heart churn.
#46 When I told him I was coming to the show, he got all weird and quiet, like he didn’t want me to be there.
#47 He saw me and gave a smile I couldn’t tell was forced or genuine.
#48 making the space feel off-balance and underwater.
#49 The people fell away, and I could almost see trees
#50 By doing so I was taking pieces of him home to keep safe
51-60
#51 I told him it was good, even though I still didn’t really know what to think of it.
#52 The world’s too dark for detail.
#53 the streetlights bounced to fractals with every step,
#54 He gave another sad smile, as though he already knew the path that lay before me,
#55 We went to the living room and sat on opposite ends of the couch.
#56 Every movement and breath made the skin on his face tighten.
#57 I didn’t ask questions, just simmered blue.
#58 “You really should probably go to the hospital or something.” “Hospitals are fucking stupid.”
#59 He stared right at me through the photo.
#60 I knew that if I left now I’d only be alone with the images repeating in my head
61-70
#61 His eyes saying about a million words but none I understood
#62 We didn’t talk at all on the walk back to the neighborhood
#63 You fear the worst because you’d be stupid not to.
#64 That’s when I realized she really loved me.
#65 The pictures put tiny holes in my insides. I breathed through each one.
#67 He brought me back downstairs and the three of us left.
#68 I couldn’t imagine another body, another choked heartbeat, or strange, slow smile filling that gap.
#69 No other arms could ever fully engulf me and choke out the rest of the Earth’s hurt.
#70 They found a note in his back pocket but the ink had been washed away.
71-80
#71 I ate my s*****e note in the hospital bathroom
#73 He told me the planet had nerve endings. He told me he wished his mother had m*******ed.
#74 She sank into the couch, catatonic.
#75 Eyes empty in a blank face
#76 After like a month, he went back to normal, or maybe I just forgot what he’d been like before.
#77 We sat on the step and looked at our knees and shoes.
#78 Her tone made me nauseous
#79 I fell weak into terrible dreams.
#80 I never really knew whether my parents loved me or not.
81-90
#81 He sounded like he was reciting something he had memorized.
#82 Thank you.” I didn’t understand what she meant or why she was saying this.
#82 Thank you.” I didn’t understand what she meant or why she was saying this.
#84 The note in his back pocket read THE WORLD IS YOURS
#85 I was raised to believe in divine intervention.
#86 it followed that if one book contained the word of God, others did too.
#87 I told her to call me if she needed anything, knowing full well that if she did reach out I’d ignore it,
#88 The entire house was filled with grey clouds
#89 A bleak, anonymous dread crept through my spine.
#90 I typed out fuck you, then deleted it and wrote yea and pressed send
91-100
#91 He smiled with sad eyes and said he was sorry about everything.
#92 Something cold and vacuous opened in my guts.
#92 Something cold and vacuous opened in my guts.
#93 We woke to pounding on the front door. It was an officer.
#95 I wasn’t surprised by what he said. She didn’t cry until after he left.
#96 Something about his smile broke me in half.
#97 I moved all his things out of her room. His clothes smelled like coffee, beer and sweat.
#98 It’s amazing how quickly everyone makes you go back to normal.
#99 It felt like fate. But I never would have told her that.
#100 Her voice was bright but off
101+