Lena's self portrait

Artist statement :

I've tasted sugar on your skull, and the culture on the brim of your lips, but all the wine I gathered for my life became so thin as the colors dripped down the edge of the glass turning into holidays and traditions. I can remember seeing a white room with dark, wooden floors, and your eyes casting shadows along the cracks. Your skin, it radiated every speck of light flowing from my lungs as she brushed my hair with smoggy scents of old addictions. I told you to be silent, and I watched you stay inside the lines. I told you I grew up unconscious and that the pipe rather than the devil had possessed me. So why didn't you listen? I had all the cards laid out in front of you, sleeping on off-green felt, I watched you lose more than you'd ever won, and I watched you be a monster. You pushed me against asphalt and ripped me limb from limb, your cringing teeth, and dark wooden floors bit me. You destroyed all my feelings, and ended it with the color red. I still don't want to taste the earth tonight. I'll carve familiar phrases onto your skin as I run back for just one gram. I can't even remember what the city sounded like, and the breeze, how she felt on the inside of my shirt. Was I colorless in your eyes? Were you deaf to the tones I uttered to briefly? You were so lost in tricks and games that you sat and watched as my bruises became black as the night became minty green. By the sea, I knelt down and wept. I wished to have someone with me then, and, far below the surface, cradling my last breath, I wished for you, only you. I remember tasting sugar on your skull, and the culture you held in your papery hands, but your eyes stared separate from my body as you told me - Sakura, you should go.

Trial and Error :