Still Life

There's a reason we're called con artists because no matter how dirty, there's always beauty and power coursing through the graft. Grifting's an art form just like any other, 'cept the canvas's a little more volatile. Some artists use paints or clay or fucking paper-mache.

I use people.

I can color you up and whittle you down 'til you fit my vision. I can cast you in shadow and bathe you in light until you don't know your own reflection. I can make you believe in whatever I say, whatever I do. Don't matter that you know better, don't matter that you're educated or world wise. And it don't matter that you've been burned before. In fact all the better.

You'll still buy what I'm selling. Hook, line and sinker.

*"I love you, Toby"*

Because I want you to. That ain't arrogance talking, that's cold hard fact. I am a master of this medium. I can paint you a picture you'd sell your soul to believe. I can mold you a sculpture, you'd burn your fingers to touch. And I can take a piece of shit and wrap it up so sweet you'd think it's fucking candy. That's what I do. That's who I am.

Sometimes I'm Picasso, baby. And sometimes I'm Van Gogh. Abstract or Impression, it don't matter. The outcome is the same. You'll give me what I ask for every fucking time. You won't want to and you'll fight it, but in the end the illustration craves the pen.

You might think I'm full of shit, but the best work is always done over a worn and weary landscape. The scars of the past add texture and depth. The colors burn deeper and shimmer more bright. Sometimes something new, something exquisite can only be born of something damaged. And sometimes, just sometimes the artist learns that his composition may have a vision of his own.

Self portrait time. Because I see myself mirrored in your eyes. And the view ain't what I expected, fractured though it may be. Something ugly has been reformed.

*"I missed you".*

Do you believe me? It don't really matter. The same damage is done either way. The artist is bound to his art and his art to him. It's true what they say, there's a sucker born every minute. It's primal nature to want to believe. Even a cynic has moments of faith.

Just look at me.

Truth or lie? You decide.

fin