He likes to think that writing is a way to paint a picture. A white canvas supported by an easel stands in front of him on nights he lived in-between of wanting to escape in dreams or facing his reality. He’s a writer dipping a paint brush into paint without using it.

He likes to think that he’s a writer painting a landscape. Carefully choosing colors, words formed in clauses and semantic fields that fit together. Adjectives made the painting more vivid, and nouns concealed the names of the people who broke him. There’s one with a sapphire sky and a dusty road, old buildings on the sideline that stood tall. It was his town he grew up to. The aroma of paint fumes is familiar to him, and yet he resents it. It’s been far too long since he once visited this place. You would see a lost boy looking for his grandmother on a busy street, and in his face is an inevitable fear. Having enough of this nostalgia, he puts the brush aside and weeps through the night.

He likes to think that he’s a writer painting his travels. He traveled cities that know only clogged streets and pollution. Although, even the streets are foreign to him, knowing nothing but the possibilities of dead ends. Eventually he became all too familiar with the rust of pipes, the stench of the dumpsters, the rats crawling across allies. Despite that, he loved the city lights that gave him hope for a better home. He decided to aboard and embark on a shipwreck, exploring it with his five senses. He ventured on countries after countries that didn’t exist to anyone, because he created them. He touched the stars and the planets, drifting lightyears away where no satellite can contact him. These places no one will ever know apart from him.

He likes to think that he’s a writer painting characters. He knew nothing of them, until he envision and let the pen drive him to where he needs to be. They are his just as much as they are their own. They know him just as little as he knows them. They were the companion that he runs to on lonely nights.

He likes to think he’s not an author, but an artist which uses words for a paintbrush and not actual paint.