Written too late at night, inspired by encounters with campus art installations. Dialogue is Seamus speaking, italics are Dean's thoughts, kind of.
"I like things to just be as they are. Just, like... Ideally, no one would ever have to look deeper, because everything would be out in the open, you know?"
That's interesting, because you yourself are secretive and tightly-wrapped and in the years I've known you you've opened yourself up little by little for me. Only for me. That hidden bit of you is an honor, it's a privilege and a treasure and I love so achingly much that you felt you could let me in. Doesn't that make things a little bit stronger? Depth makes meaning so much more profound to me.
"Don't get me wrong, I like what you do, because you make great things that look incredible, and you're talented, Dean. I just don't think things need a hundred layers and a meaning or whatever the hell to be worth anything. You should be able to draw beautiful things just for the sake of it. I dunno. Maybe I just like things simple."
Do you feel this way about people, too? Is that what you love about me, that I'm an open book, nothing more than I claim to be? I don't like to think of myself as shallow, but maybe I am. I haven't got your layers. I'm not a fucking onion of emotion with skins and skins of jokes and macho posturing and flying-just-under-the-radar like you are. I am uncomplicated, I am easy. I am nothing but a surface. You can run your fingers over me and there is no need to dig deeper.
"Did you actually paint this intending it to be a statement about the loss of innocence? Sexism? Racism? It's just Livy sitting on the couch, for Christ's sake."
No. I let my sister dress up for me and painted her how she felt proud. I liked the color of the shorts with the color of the curtains and the light from the window. She pulled up the strap of her top when it fell down, but I sketched it in around her shoulder anyway: it felt more carefree, as if she were too happy to notice.
But when someone looks at it and sees a part of themselves or a part of their perception of the world, who am I to reject that? I think that is the best part of meanings: they are individual, they are formed of experience and memories and personal emotion. A person could paint a platform barrier at King's Cross with no thought besides the composition and color, but to you and me it would be so, so much.
"But I guess, if people like it, they like it, right? Who really cares why? If somebody were to buy it you'd get paid either way."
If people like it, they like it. If you love me, you love me. Who really cares why? We'd be friends either way. I shouldn't care whether I am just simple heart-on-his-sleeve Dean to you and it shouldn't matter that you are deep-deep-down Seamus because we have something that we need, that we love. And whatever keeps you by me is a blessing because I couldn't be without your presence, never again.
This thought feels strange in me, rubbing something the wrong way, but I want to believe it. I want to be you looking at a painting, not fully understanding but deciding that it doesn't matter because its beauty is pleasurable enough. I want to be unconcerned with why.
But as you shuffle along to the next canvas I trail behind, worrying about whether you love me or my openness, whether I love you or your hiddenness.