Gone

I remember walking those halls, hand in hand, looking over all of the beautiful work. Those were happy days. We silently seperated and went through the room, only to converge in front of a couple works to look at them, hand in hand again, listening to the curator as she explained small tidbits about certain ones or changed the lighting so that we could see what was brought out with the lights changing facets. He found his first, it was beautiful and graceful. I could see it in the forefront of a church, its beautiful blues sweeping over the floor. I found mine after.
It caught me up in the way that it was stark. The lines were nothing that I had seen before in that kind of art, sharp angles, almost geometric. The colors were more neutral and did not stand out as the others did, yet the angles and how it was displayed stood out to me. It struck me how simple it was, because that was all that I wanted in who was in the picture.
We took them home after they were framed in gorgeous antique gold frames and black matting. Over the years they changed places on the walls a few times. We would turn on the art lights over them when company came over so that they could stand out a little more. I would often stand and look at them, at mine, for minutes on end, catching new details and pulling in their immensity in the dynamic smallness.
Quite a few years later we parted, along with possessions seperated. It was a sad time, a scary time. Many things I layed down and just let him have, I did not want to bother with the diatribes, the fights over who paid for it, who used it more, who deserved it more. I felt guilt over what I had done, my life had been turned upside down and I wanted to run. I was mortified that I had let my profession slide out of my hands, I saw pity in their eyes and I did not want to see that. I held so strong to a belief for so long that was really never there after hearing his words that we never truly loved each other. I know that I did...in a way I always will. I think he is just lying to himself to see those words and make the world believe it. Or maybe he truly felt that way and I was misled. Either way it was the saddest part of my life and one that changed my heart and took something away from me that I will never get back.
I took that stark piece of art when I moved out. I hung it on the wall at my mothers house. It looked so nice in those sunlit rooms. I made a big move and did not want to take the art and have it destroyed on the long trip. I would come back for it after I was settled in. I thought about it often, wondered how I would bring it with me when I was visiting next and where I would put it when I returned to my new home. I found a perfect spot, I moved things so that I could hang it as soon as I returned back from getting it. To my suprise it was not there any more when I returned to my mothers to get it. She said that he came, one day out of the blue, months after things were final and took it. Acted like I knew what was going on and took it out of her home. She was too nice to know.
I got there and wondered where it was. I couldn't wait to lay my eyes on it again. The first question I asked when I got in the house. "Where is my painting?"...it was gone. Six months later gone. It changed something in me towards him that day that I had never seen in him. I had never seen him lie or steal so blatantly. I am inconsolable, to this day. I want that  art back more than anything, because it was something that symbolized something to me. It was stark life and geometric simplicity in my Savior in that art. It was happiness together and warm memories of a time we had for awhile. I am at a loss for how to get it back from a man that took it from me without any regard. Gone.