VAN GOGH

 The colour was never quiet. It pressed against him –  urgent, insistent –  demanding to be seen as he felt it, not as it was. “Too much,” they said. “Too wild.”  

But restraint felt like dishonesty. He painted faster. Harder. As though the truth might disappear if he slowed. The canvas trembled with it. 

Not beauty – something closer to unrest. And even as the work took shape, something inside him recoiled. 

Because what he had made was not what they would accept. And what they would accept… he could not bring himself to create.