Smile Lines

“Cool your features or you're going to get wrinkles and need Botox.”

Why would I ever be cool when I can be an artist on fire?

Let me light up the canvas that is my face with quick yet intentional lines, striking wherever, whenever.

I only have one, and it is mine.

It was never about perfection or preservation.

Art is abstract.

Unique to each artist.

The canvas given to me was not meant to be placed in a glass case.

It was made to feel the sun on each fibre of its being.

To feel the rain soak into its grooves.

To be washed, refreshed.

To start again.

To be painted on over and over again. And with each wash, to be left with faint lines of paint. Because as time passes, each stroke will turn into a memory.

Yet I wonder why some try to erase them.

It displays to future artists that it’s safe to paint through life.

Why would they want to erase proof of pride in freedom?

To hide instead of being an artist who challenges the views of the world.

It’s a silent permission to stand out,

To step out,

Of the confines of "colouring inside the lines."

Because it's better to try than stand aside.

And if you end up in a room of sideways glances because your art is loud, wild, and messy, remember it can be all those things because it’s free.

There’s a deep fear of growing old.

It’s mistaken as becoming wilted, ugly, or yesterday’s news.

But yesterday shaped today.

If the fear of being replaced shapes how you live your life, you’ll spend your life holding your brush to your canvas but never making contact.

Putting your life on pause.

Watching.

Waiting.

Wanting.

To fit those who are “perfect.”

Maybe you’ll try to copy each stroke of their brush,

The angle of their wrist.

But it won’t ever look the same.

They have their art, and you have yours.

When I grow old, and others cover their canvases in whiteout, hoping to erase their past, I will look at my stained canvas and smile.

I will know that I wasn't afraid to live.

I will see every smile,

Hear every laugh,

Feel every tear,

And smell the curiosity in every question I asked.

From "Are we there yet?" to “How do I apply for a master's program?”

Every single moment of expression in my life will boil down to this canvas.

My face.

And in every crease, dent, and wrinkle, there will be proof that I burned bright,

Instead of staying cool.