I had no choice but to descend into the locked cellar of my soul. The pale sun and the tumbling clouds weren’t enough to inspire me and I needed shock therapy. Therefore I stood trembling before a blank page of possibility, with only a paintbrush and flickering instinct to guide me.

The actual me and all the other me’s; scary, stupid, sneezy, snazzy, dopey and desperate me, combined to complete the picture. One held the brush, one scratched the chin, one mixed the colours, one looked out the window aimlessly, one thought about the bitter past and fading future and one sat in the corner.

The painting came to life slowly, painfully, angry at being created so thoughtlessly with such lack of finesse. I cringed to see its birth pains and I watched it writhe in agony on the canvas, bathed in an unforgiving light. I was my worst critic.

The cave reeked with the sweat of the possessed, as I attacked cliche with a vengeance. I danced around the truth, waving my paintbrush like a wand that dripped with my own blood. I knew it was a senseless activity, dragging feelings out of the ether, naming them with paint and smearing them across the canvas. But part of me lived on.