Stiff

For many days and many nights, the painter yearns for artistic delights,

A divine love, the perfect portrait from above—

Bright bristles dance along, while the room is filled with her lovely song,

Notes speed up before gliding along, like wings of a fleeting dove.

The chamber grows silent, but the art requests the painter’s love—

A small blessing from above.

A lantern flickers next to his prize, sparkling in his love’s eyes,

When he finished at last, he looked up from his creation aghast—

By the time he got to where she lay, her soft skin had begun to gray,

Her love for him was unsurpassed, but the reaper crept in quite fast.

Art consumed the painter, never thinking of how much time had passed.

Now his work’s a stark contrast.

He kissed his dear lover goodbye, for it was now his turn to die,

Enjoying his last bit of fresh air, he moved his wooden chair.

Gazing longingly at his art, guilt was instilled within his heart—

He tied his noose and said a prayer, ready to see his love up there.

The taught rope snapped instead, dropping the mourning painter from the air—

into a heap of despair.

“This is indeed Life itself!”

About the Author

Ryan Hiemenz is a Junior Media and Communications major with a minor in Creative Writing. He works for many different publications on and around Arcadia University, both writing and editing in various styles. This year, he is the president of Arcadia's English Honors Society, Sigma Tau Delta. More personally, he is a huge fan of all things horror, spending much of his free time watching, reading, and writing things from the genre. Over the summer, he even self publshed a horror poetry chapbook called Fearing Fiction, and he loves to build on the stories in that book!