on why your relationships with artists don’t work

i heard once that “dating a musician” is a big

“no-no”---

citing that i was a musician, a painter, a poet, a writer,

i found the person to be slinking away on the other side of the

phone

(rather difficult thing to sense)

&

in that experience,

i found it important to explain just why

relationships with artists just might not work for those who have never

developed a song melody, strummed a riff,

programmed a beat, penned a poem, jotted down a short story,

play or screenplay or two,

batted out a painting with deep brush strokes or bare fingers

raking through the acrylic/oil,

etc.

etc.

etc.---

look, here’s the deal,

artists don’t need you.

(i know you don’t want to hear it,

but i’ll say it again…

they don’t need you).

 

artists can always come back to what makes them whole---

they can always get lost in their work,

with more passion than they might ever shell at another human

being &

while this might disgust you,

while it might make you think that we are all

sociopaths,

the thing is, without art,

without all the songs, the poems, the novels, the movies,

the beats, the paintings,

etc.,

you yourself

would probably have sucked on a double barreled shotgun

long long ago.

 

when you are in a relationship with someone who doesn’t have a

love affair with their work,

then when things go bad,

sure, you work them out, or you break up and go your

separate ways---

but you cannot compete against an artist’s work,

for it was there before you existed,

and it will be there when you go---

an artists work trumps all else

to the artist

&

those who don’t have art to go to,

those who don’t have art to heal---

well,

these are the suicides…

these are the homicides…

these are the folks who complain that

being in a relationship with an artist

is just not worth it.