the children draw in the abstract. lines that don't fit quite right, color schemes that make little sense, and proportions that stretch the imagination as far as it can bend.
the adults smile and place the drawings on the symmetrical refrigerator doors of their neatly aligned suburban floorspace. But every time they see it out of the corner of their eyes, they sweat with nervous impulse. The triangle of a hat breaks open and floods color, the words 'I love you' seem to have been pasted together like a ransom note, from a million newspaper clippings, a separate dimension and thought and color for each letter.
The children declare their love in crackling voices that scream and cry at the same time. Maybe they are conveying a thousand emotions, maybe two, but never one. A child's mind is never in one place. The adults smile but can never truly return this complex form of emotion, pasted together from a mind not quite at ease, drawing half-formed circles instead of morse code lines and dots.
For our sanity and theirs, the older we grow, the more trained and deliberate become the words. I love you. One mind. One emotion. One life, one death. One lie.
And in our most insecure moments, we awkwardly grip the shortened, blunt crayons and start to dash it all over the walls without thought and malice.
And then our fear of steadily declining property values sends us spiraling back to earth.
Silly children.
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