a trip to the store to buy new supplies
to make her first piece of art.
it took a great deal of effort to get there,
to find the keys, to start the car, to buy everything needed, and to return home.  
on the ride home nothing but joy filled the car, at the excitement of the start of a collection. 
she hoped for it to be on the larger side, a personal gallery with the vibrance of Warhol
to contrast the gloom Caravaggios of her childhood home.

as she brings in the boxes and begins to unpack, 
she realizes she can’t open the packaging on her own, and calls her husband in to help.
together, they rip away at cardboard to reach the items inside.
they finish and he leaves. 
she sits at her easel and reaches a long painted nail out to puncture the plastic that holds her canvas, 
and begins sketching out the image she’s been painting in her head for years.

but after three months of stress and work… it doesn’t look right. 
something in it isn’t right, something has gone wrong. 
she wept, 
but it had to go.
and she mourned the loss of her very first painting.

she wanted to try again, she had to have those paintings, her life would be nothing without them.
she desperately needed and craved the artwork, to fill the ten years of
honeymoon solitude  
and so she grabbed the keys once again, and pushed them into the car, and began her trip. 
for the second time, she called her husband in.
they peeled away the cardboard that held their next piece, 
and as she sat at her easel,
her hands reached to the canvas.
she poked her now bare nail through its plastic, as she was too exhausted to color them.

but as she began to paint,
vivid colors and images filled her head again,
restoring her with happiness she had not felt, 
since the start of her first painting. 
which to her, felt as if it was years ago.
she poured her soul into her second canvas.

but things were different this round, history loves to repeat itself.
cruel time had let her live in the illusion for longer, 
and believe that because she was further along, 
that painting would be hers
forever. 
she was fighting, 
boxing gloves bloodied,
to keep what was rightfully hers.
what she deserved
what she needed
what she craved to fill the hole left in her and the empty space on her walls.

but with one swift blow, 

she was left on the hospital floor.
bloody and gasping for breath,
she felt as if she couldn’t do it anymore,
couldn’t lose another painting.

so, she reached out. 
coughing up savings and swallowing her pride, 
she took her pills, and went to every appointment, to ensure that next time her work would be
perfect.
she was too scared to drive back to the store
and repeat her loss,
so she sent her husband.
and just like she did before,
he plunged the keys into the car, and made the round trip.
as he pushed open the door, he handed her what he had bought, but was too
disinterested 
to free the canvas with her.
she was too tired to rip away the plastic, with her chewed on and frail fingernails, and decided
it would be best to walk to a drawer in the kitchen and pull out
a large pair of scissors, 
to cut away at the plastic that kept her canvas trapped. 
she placed the canvas on her easel
and said a quick prayer.
she put her brushes in the water and placed paint on her pallet.
and for nine months she painted
and painted
and painted
and wiped the sweat from her brow
and washed her vomit from the bathtub
and continued to paint. 

and finally,
it was time
she was finally here.
it was a day she dreamed of since girlhood.
as she put her hands together and prayed,
she came out clean.
with a beautiful new painting
that she was eternally grateful for.
her very first
and only 
child.