Wednesday
Favoured Frenzy
When an artist captures someone they love in art…
that person slowly begins to drift away.
Not because art is poisonous.
Not because love isn’t real.
But because artists feel endings before they arrive.
It’s something I imagine Wednesday Addams would understand the quiet awareness that something beautiful is already becoming temporary.
We don’t just look at the people we love.
We study them.
We memorise:that person slowly begins to drift away.
Not because art is poisonous.
Not because love isn’t real.
But because artists feel endings before they arrive.
It’s something I imagine Wednesday Addams would understand the quiet awareness that something beautiful is already becoming temporary.
We don’t just look at the people we love.
We study them.
- The exact tilt of their smile when they’re half amused.
- The crease between their brows when they’re pretending not to care.
- The way their voice softens at 2 a.m. when honesty slips out unguarded.
And the moment we start noticing details that closely…
we are already afraid.
Because attention is a form of pre-grief.
I’ve realized something unsettling.
I only feel the urge to draw someone when my heart senses instability.
When they feel too precious.
Too fragile.
Too capable of disappearing.
It’s as if my hands whisper before my mind admits it:
“Keep them. Freeze this version. Just in case.”
So I sketch them while they’re laughing.
I paint them while they’re still warm beside me.
I write about them while they’re still replying fast.
And slowly…
Reality begins to fade, but the art remains untouched.
That’s the curse.
We preserve the version of them that loved us.
Not the one who drifted.
Not the one who became distant.
Not the one who chose silence.
The preserved version is softer. Kinder. Permanent.
And permanence is dangerous.
Because when they eventually step back from our lives as people sometimes do
we don’t just lose them once.
We lose them twice.
Once in reality.
And again every time we look at what we created.
Artists don’t move on easily.
We archive.
We romanticize.
We revisit.
A random page in a sketchbook becomes a time machine.
A saved draft becomes a wound reopening quietly.
A portrait becomes proof that “we were once real.”
And sometimes I wonder…
Do we create the art because they’re leaving?
Or do they leave because, somewhere deep inside, we’ve already turned them into a memory?
There’s something almost tragic about
loving as an artist.
We sense shifts before words are spoken.
We notice distance before it’s confessed.
We capture people at their brightest… right before the dimming begins.
It isn’t magic.
It’s observation.
And observation can feel like slow heartbreak.
Maybe the artist’s curse is not that people drift away.
Maybe it’s that we feel the drifting in advance.
We start drawing when the air changes.
When the warmth feels slightly less certain.
When the future feels less promised.
We don’t draw to trap them.
We draw because we already know we can’t.
And the softest truth?
Every portrait is a goodbye in disguise.
Every poem is a quiet rehearsal for absence.
Every saved memory is us preparing for the
possibility of losing it.
So when someone says,
“It’s beautiful that you captured them like that,”
I smile gently.
Because they don’t realise
I only captured them
because I felt them slipping.
Softly,
the girl who draws what she’s afraid to lose.
we are already afraid.
Because attention is a form of pre-grief.
I’ve realized something unsettling.
I only feel the urge to draw someone when my heart senses instability.
When they feel too precious.
Too fragile.
Too capable of disappearing.
It’s as if my hands whisper before my mind admits it:
“Keep them. Freeze this version. Just in case.”
So I sketch them while they’re laughing.
I paint them while they’re still warm beside me.
I write about them while they’re still replying fast.
And slowly…
Reality begins to fade, but the art remains untouched.
That’s the curse.
We preserve the version of them that loved us.
Not the one who drifted.
Not the one who became distant.
Not the one who chose silence.
The preserved version is softer. Kinder. Permanent.
And permanence is dangerous.
Because when they eventually step back from our lives as people sometimes do
we don’t just lose them once.
We lose them twice.
Once in reality.
And again every time we look at what we created.
Artists don’t move on easily.
We archive.
We romanticize.
We revisit.
A random page in a sketchbook becomes a time machine.
A saved draft becomes a wound reopening quietly.
A portrait becomes proof that “we were once real.”
And sometimes I wonder…
Do we create the art because they’re leaving?
Or do they leave because, somewhere deep inside, we’ve already turned them into a memory?
There’s something almost tragic about
loving as an artist.
We sense shifts before words are spoken.
We notice distance before it’s confessed.
We capture people at their brightest… right before the dimming begins.
It isn’t magic.
It’s observation.
And observation can feel like slow heartbreak.
Maybe the artist’s curse is not that people drift away.
Maybe it’s that we feel the drifting in advance.
We start drawing when the air changes.
When the warmth feels slightly less certain.
When the future feels less promised.
We don’t draw to trap them.
We draw because we already know we can’t.
And the softest truth?
Every portrait is a goodbye in disguise.
Every poem is a quiet rehearsal for absence.
Every saved memory is us preparing for the
possibility of losing it.
So when someone says,
“It’s beautiful that you captured them like that,”
I smile gently.
Because they don’t realise
I only captured them
because I felt them slipping.
Softly,
the girl who draws what she’s afraid to lose.
