Latest Posts by malenarts - Page 10
BEETLE
Absorbed
the grumpy flower
-
oil on canvas
2024
The Canyon
We walk together in the fog, hand in hand. Your fingers interlock with mine like a jigsaw puzzle that’s missing half the pieces. I squeeze your palm tight the way a desperate young child holds on to a prayer.
I turn to you and ask, “Do you know where we’re going?”
You smirk and reply, “You’ll see.”
In the mist a shadow appears in front of us – two wooden posts, rickety boards, a bridge crossing a canyon. I stop, and you pull on my arm.
Turning to me, you say “What’s the matter?”
I shift my weight from foot to foot. “That doesn’t look… stable. Is there another way we could go?”
You laugh. “You’ll be fine, this is the quickest way. Don’t be such a worrier.”
I let you pull me closer to the bridge, but stop when I look over the edge. The canyon descends into an inky blackness of which I cannot see the bottom. I swallow hard as I imagine both of us plunging into those depths, so deep nobody would even hear the echo of my screams.
You tug on my arm again, rougher this time, more annoyed. One of your feet is sitting on the first board, and every time you move I hear it creak. “Come on, don’t be a pussy.”
I feel my nose crinkle as my face contorts into a frown. “Can’t we take the long way?”
You squeeze my hand hard enough it hurts. “I told you, this is the way we’re going. If you don’t follow me, I’ll go without you.”
I shuffle my feet towards the bridge tentatively, and you respond by pulling me roughly onto the bridge to follow you. I drag behind, trying with all my willpower to just keep my eyes on the back of your head instead of peering into the darkness below us. The further back I fall, the harder you stomp your feet, making the bridge shake and groan. On one footfall I feel the board underneath us almost give way, and I stop dead in my tracks.
“Please,” I say, “Can we stop? Can we just go home?”
You turn around and look at me with hate in your eyes. “Don’t you want to see where I was taking you?”
I panic. “I mean.. yes, but I’m really freaked out now, I don’t like that I can’t see the bottom and–”
“God,” you roll your eyes, “You’re so high-maintenance.”
“I’m sorry, I just–” I shrink into myself, my hand shaking in yours, “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s whatever” You say, looking off into the distance, “It’s fine. You can go home.”
My voice trembles. “Don’t you want to come with me?”
“I want to cross the bridge. I made that clear already.”
I stare at you with pleading eyes, and I can’t make my throat cooperate with my voice. I feel the board beneath me crack, and I jump, which only makes it crack more.
“Please,” I finally say, begging, “I don’t want you to get hurt either.”
You scoff. “We’re already halfway over it, and nothing bad has happened yet. Just come on.”
I can’t stop myself from shifting my weight nervously, even though it just makes the bridge sway. I start to feel sick.
“I–” I stutter, “I can’t.”
I let go of your hand, and there is silence except for the squeaking of the bridge. You turn your body to face me. Your gaze pierces through me, no longer smirking nor annoyed – just cold.
There is silence. You lift your foot, and for a second I think you’re going to step towards me, that you are listening to my plea to just turn around and go home. But instead you slam the ball of your foot down hard on the board between my legs, shattering it in one fell swoop.
There is a sickening crack as the board gives way. I reach for you again, but you do not reach back. I shriek your name, and you say nothing.
I fall, I fall, I fall – and then there is black.
Som neon tetra i drew at school in ms paint.. in all fairness i’ll probably delete this later :-)
common spiny flower mantis, as an apology for the hiatus🌷
My adaptation of the God of Arepo short story, which was originally up at ShortBox Comics Fair for charity. You can get a copy of the DRM-free ebook here for free - and I'd encourage you to donate to Mighty Writers or The Ministry of Stories in exchange.
Again it's an honour to be drawing one of my favourite short stories ever. Thank you so much for the original authors for creating this story; and for everyone who bought a copy and donated to the above non-profits.
whatever you want
Commission for Joely.
thinking of summer
Me, Alive 💕✨
End Of The Salmon Cycle
Watercolor and pencil with details added in procreate!
some linocuts. can't decide which ones I like better so I'll post both versions
the sarah poems by Ruth Awad
Look into the bathroom mirror and see your own eyes
Stare into yourself, you created your fate and insecurities
You have grown old, but that's fine
And you didn't expect your life to go by like a breeze
All of us want to cover up the signs of aging
The physical shells we live in are built to break under the weight of time
Panic and self-annihilation begin upon the first hair graying
Mortality is not a construct of the mind: when you die, you die
Wrinkles look like stretched out smiley faces
A transaction occurred: moments, good and bad, were exchanged for your body's reconstruction
Your spirit will be emboldened as your muscles become deflated
Curse out Mother & Father Time and ask the empty space for justice
You must live by your actions and their consequences, good and bad
Time is a priceless commodity that can never be gotten back
The Glass Won't Lie (20 February 2025)
foliage study :-) there's an angel in the garden
There was a faerie who was captured by humans at a young age when they were only just a little bud. They never got a chance to ever really see another faerie. Their entire life they were treated like a meusum peice, nobody really talked to them or was every affectionate with them. They traded a lot of hands over their life, but they eventually ended up in the care of a wealthy American business man. They were occasionally given things to play with, but still, nobody talked to them.
The faerie was eventually put in a glass case for people to look at when visiting their masters home. And people liked them. And people were happy with them. And everyone always said that they'd be happiest in their cage, and that this was for their saftey.
Eventually another faerie, one who was able to remain amoung his own kind his entire life, snuck into the mansion they were being kept in a glass case in. The other faerie disgusied himself as an old man, but when he was alone with his fellow fae he revealed himself to them, and he was more beautiful then anything they had ever seen before, his wings were like a dragonfly's, and his horns with the branches of cherry blossoms, and his eyes were made of pure jade, and he wore armor made of solid bismuth as hard as steel.
And he told the faerie in the glass cage; "come with me and we will fly through a thousand skies and look upon athousand worlds below. I can take you to planes and to lands you would never before know existed. We will walk through forests wider then the earth and discover all the beasts and birds within them. We will go to cities that shine like works of art and explore their streets and hear the languages of the multiverse together. We will go to parties on towers so high they reach into space, and talk with people you could only dream of. When we slip between realms the void washes over us like summer rain. We will play forever, and we will never grown tired, and we will never grow old."
And the faerie in the glass cage told him, "no. For I am safe here. The outside is something I've never known, and something that may hurt me. I may make the wrong choices, I may see things that scare me, and I could be harmed. Yet here I know what I am, and I have no choices, and I have no surprises."
And the free faerie walked away in tears, for he knew he had done all that he could do.
An embroidery of the Wikipedia page for embroidery.
these days when you close your eyes, what else do you want but to be loved in a warm and permanent way. the open soft hand, the lowered voice, the blanket around your shoulders. you want to be loved like hot chocolate, like spring flowers, like dawn. you want to go to sleep protected and wake up fully rested. you want the wounds in you to matter, you want someone who is patient around your scars.
how greedy. these days when you look around, how many little ways are you assaulted by the notion that it's wrong to need others. individualism! capitalism! bootstraps! every time you try to language it, you need to cover up your desire into a carefully-worded soundbite: of course no single person can fulfill every need and we must invest in communities and i must be responsible for my own mental health and
but the yawning in you doesn't understand logic or sound or reason. it only sees sundays, only sees what you do-not-have, only sees the look others share and that you so desire. sick with dread at it, sick at how it makes you want, how you yearn in no direction.
no matter how many people you take with you to bed, no matter how many hands touch the tattoo you share with your sibling, no matter how many times you kneel with your knees bleeding. always, the ache that never stops chewing, the desperate sick loneliness that never quite abates. it never stops humming, i need i need i need. you burn your inner child for warmth and scatter the ashes into your morning coffee.
so you shut up and you load your life like shotgun shells and you try to make yourself whole in the way that others are whole. you let your father's words spill out of your mouth. you make a quick joke rather than tear your heart open. you sing into the mic and go home with stars in your eyes. your life is beautiful and you're lucky! you have everything a person can need!
but it would be nice, is the thing. to have a love that feels like peace.
I can be shaped by more than the things that hurt me
comm for a patron
Self portrait, based on this photo(don’t reupload)
Hope you guys like my art!! This did super absurdly well on tiktok
from swan lake by maureen seaton, published in furious cooking
[Text ID: I want you.
Everything I say sounds like that. /End ID]
experimental thing from a while ago
thank you for all the lovely reactions to my last fish post :‘)