Not Like Art

He is famous 
He is rich 
and he doesn't give a shit about you or me. 

I’m never gonna forget the day I met him.
How could I forget a man whose passion drove me insane?
A man whose self-absorption took me out of my comfort zone to an unfathomable world of solitude?
The day we met was gleeful but breezy
with waves and turns that only now as I sit by my “own” desk
I comprehend.
He stumbled upon my way by mere coincidence
or so I like to believe.
From behind the reading glasses
his eyes were grey
and without announcing he decided that he wanted my story.
He reeled me in with the strength of an old man at his sea, and the stories that came after became his most prized possessions.
He drove me to his home where I would become his mate.
As he opened the opulent gate guarding his territory I thought I had entered Shangri-La.
The greenery surrounding it, protecting him from curious eyes was lush—it gave him
The aristocrat
Lord of his own kingdom
an air that exhaled from his skin.
We walked together through his gardens 
down the path to his writing cottage.
He told me that he loved the place and that he hated when he had to leave it
We walked on.
“He is well travelled,” I was told.
Yes he is well travelled and proud of the poor painter’s art that gives life to his lifeless walls.
He told me that the woodcarving sitting on the corner of the living room was from Africa
the colorful acrylic canvas where kids were flying kites was from Brazil
the Herman Miller chair next to his writing desk was good for his back.
He showed me around and offered me tea, very English, though he was born far from there.
He told me that the bread was fresh and that he had baked it himself.
Perhaps he was trying to sound normal.
As I walked on the beautiful polished wood floors, I admired his lean body and his dark hair.
Not bad for his forties but too untouchable and intellectual, I thought.
As he showed me his bedroom, where he sleeps and dream—I captured a glimpse of him.
The bed was heavy, made of hardwood with intricate carvings, embellishing it—it told me that he just lays there, staring at the ceiling or at the green view beyond his bubble glass window.
There was no sex in that room
there was no passion.
And I wished I could lay in the hot tub; soak myself on the warm water and watch him create his next masterpiece.
But he took me away as if afraid of the evident contradiction of sex and no sex.
The brisk walking out of his bedroom clashed with his earlier posture 
it let me in in his secret.
He was afraid of me.
I followed him to his desk where I saw his true love
the one that takes him away from you and me
the one that lets him dream.
It lays on its surface, untouched, waiting for his long fingers and the ink of his writing tool to caress another story, another glory.
He treated me like a house guest, not a mate or a friend and I saw him through.
I understood why he took me to his room.
he wanted me to dream.
Dream about him lying there, solitary, closed and distant
That's how he is.
Tirelessly he took bits of me and with it he took my years and my freedom.
He took my dreams and turned them into his.
He wrote stories while I wove them to him
then he would bake the bread and brew the black bitter tea, while, all the while, all I wanted was to soak in the tub, and wash what was left of my dreams.
There were the questions
and I gave him the answers
then, he would go back to his love of making people dream and distort my answers to his questions.
And I?
I saw him through.
The everyday teatime became scalding, with the warm bread melting the butter—suffocating.
Unconcerned he continued writing my stories while I became a lifeless carving sitting in the corner of his room.
Not like art; bringing life to his walls,
but a chronic, tied-down anchor, afraid to stop the dream and flee
afraid that there would not be another story
for you or me.