It is incontrovertible that every painting on the surface of the Earth lays unfinished.
The down-on-their-luck victims of the eternally half-done curse. They exist, welcoming and accommodating, to whichever aquamarine, periwinkle or lily-white line will come next -- never complete. A house could always be a barn, a flower could always be a garden, and a sunset could always be a festering wound. Yellow, black, blue and red could be whatever they could be, and to demand of them an ethos would be like asking of them to commit treason to their essence.
Their definition exists in the lack thereof. A permanence of totipotent indecision. Much like a blank page. Much like the young.
A painting could go on forever, accompany the ups and downs of seasons, the rise and fall of kingdoms, until the painter decides to stop. In truth, every painting is infinite.
They run as red rivers inside the artist, and he decides whether or not they flow. He decides the slashing of the wrists, the loosening or tightening of a tourniquet and the final handkerchief that halts it all.
It has happened, more than once, that the stream wouldn't stop even after this last procedure; either it was far too strong, or the cloth not sturdy enough. There will always be more, so much more to do, so much more to bleed. And if there isn't, then it's because the painter is now dead.
Although this occurrence might be rare, it is very sad, but necessary.
Nevertheless, with no exception, the painter must be the one to decide when the image upon the canvas will suffice. If any addition would be redundant, useless, or unworthy of the painting already spun; if silence says more and better than any further noise at all. When that is understood, the bleeding shall be paused.
Life is not like a painting, but she was stubborn and wanted to see hers just as so. She decided that stopping would be more beautiful, meaningful and grand than to keep on going. She refused to ruin a good painting with unnecessary blood. A true, great painter, like her mother before her.
She felt the blades, caresses of cold, raw metal against skin; red seeped through, and it reminded her of a sunset.
Knowing when to stop is an art of few, and the mastery of this skill is precisely what separates a true, great painter from a sea of messy bleeders.
Muito obrigada, leitores, por terem chegado ao final do texto! Não esqueçam de compartilhar com os amigos e familiares. Convido-os a refletirem sobre o que mais existe na incompletude, e, caso sintam-se confortáveis, colocarem suas observações nos comentários.