i’m still bitter from highschool, and i always will be because the memories follow me everywhere, intruding in even the happiest of places. in high school they asked us to paint our favourite places. places we spent the most time, were the happiest, visited, had families in, friends in. the walls filled up with oceans, cabins, backyards, the smell of summer kitchens. everyone else had this laughter, swimming pools, family vacations, sunlit yards that looked like they came out of a movie, and me? i painted my computer. quiet, empty, almost embarrassing. it was a humble setup back then, i couldn’t afford much. two glowing rectangles, a keyboard, the cheap plastic tower slamming my desk down like it’s only purpose was to have weight. i stood there looking at the wall and felt it, how much emptier my life looked than theirs. how little space i seemed to take up in the world. i was the only one who painted a computer, let alone a desk. amazing places full of life, and i painted a cheap imitation of it. i remember how small it looked on that wall, how obvious it was that i had nothing to offer. years have passed. all these years later, i’ve built a ten thousand dollar fortress of glass and wires, five monitors burning holes in the dark, and it still feels like the same emptiness. it still feels like standing in that classroom, the freak with nothing worth painting. i have this way of rotting even the victories. i can’t just have a setup, i have to think about how nobody sees it. i can’t just enjoy the specs, i have to remember how bitter i am that my whole life has been spent in front of a screen, alone, while everyone else was busy living in “real places.” their paintings were evidence of lives connected to others. i cope. i cope harder than anybody else has ever coped before. nobody else remembers the monitor painting but me. they don’t have to. they’ve moved on to berlin trips, family living rooms with too many cousins, sunny walks in neighbourhoods, ponds with someone’s arm around their shoulder. all the watercolour places they painted came true. and i’m still here, still staring at the screens, the same, just more expensive now. a bigger cage, a louder cope. progress, right? i’ve spent my whole life inside that painting. all i’ve done is upgrade the hardware. more pixels, better frame rates, sharper colours. but it’s the same place. i managed to turn even a “favourite place” into a confession of loneliness. it’s impossible to forget the silence in this room. it’s impossible to stop measuring the quiet singing of my setup against the absence of everything else. i thought upgrades would fill the emptiness, but they only sharpen it. the more i build, the clearer it becomes that i’m still alone. there’s nothing to show except this room, these screens, nothing that translates the hours i’ve lived into something others can hold. they have photo albums, memories stitched with other people. they can point and say: this was my place, this was my time. and i have… a desk. a bed. 2 cats. a corner that no one else has ever stood in with me. i can’t just enjoy it, i have to sit here knowing i’ve poured my entire life into a room no one else will enter. i can’t look at my rig without thinking of that wall of paintings, they don’t think about it. and why would they? they’ve got lives, people, memories with colour and air and heat in them. i’m the only one still stuck replaying high school art projects, still bitter enough to drag a ghost out of a hallway wall, still looking at the light of my setup and thinking this is all i ever had, and all i’ll ever have. #schizo #lol above is something i uploaded on substack last night, if ur interested in the painting i made back then for that, i uploaded it there too. (its not that good, just a sad memory)🍀 the link is in my bio or the same username as my tiktok handle🐙 much appreciated 😁! - @dawnerly