It's getting harder to feel every day.
 
I need to keep feeling. It's what powers my art. My art is my livelihood. It's the purpose for my existence. Without my art, I'm nothing. Without me, my art is nothing. We're two living things bound together in one body.
 
Need to create. Need to feel. Need to keep feeling. Need to keep creating.
 
It's lonely here in Tokyo. It's bad enough being away from my friends. It's worse being here in Tokyo as the rising star. Everyone knows me. Rin Tezuka, the no-armed artist, the wonder of the Japanese art scene. Everyone wants to talk to me. No one wants to know me. No one knows me.
 
I'm tired.
 
Tired is bad. Tired means that I can't create. I need to keep creating. Need to keep proving my existence. Need to see if I can show myself to them.
 
The first time, it was a mistake. I was exhausted, too tired. I got a nosebleed. It bled all over my canvas. I was going to clean it up, but then I saw the way the dark red spots flowed over the texture of the paint. It was beautiful.
 
I let more of the red liquid flow over my canvas. My teachers loved it. They said it was incredible. How did I get that particular shade of dark red? My secret.
 
There's a piece of me on all my canvases since then. I found a simple method to it: a small knife which I taped to a block of wood. draw it against the instep of my foot, or against the stump of my arm. The stump of the arm is best: no one can see it under my sleeves. Sometimes, if I need a lot of inspiration, I hit my head against the wall sometimes, let myself bleed from the nose, watch it fall.
 
Drip drip drip. Like water. Like tears.
 
Like rain.
 
Rain is what happens when the sky cries.
 
Once I tried holding my breath until I passed out. It didn't work. My body decided to keep breathing. I saw interesting dark shapes, though. Put them into my next painting. The professors loved it. The students thought it was fantastic.
 
Another time, I tried to show them what it looks like when I stare into the light until it hurts to keep my eyes open. They loved that too.
 
Emi called me the other day. She's happy. She and her boyfriend are travelling up to Tokyo to visit me. They're enjoying themselves. She runs with him every day. She loves him.
 
I'm lonely.
 
I'm alone in a cage made of my own mind, trapped inside my canvases and my paints. I'm standing on the top of a tower screaming for help. My paints are my voice, but my voice is drowned out by the babbling gallery mob.
 
They call me brilliant, they call me incredible. They say my works are beautiful, then they ask me what they mean.
 
There's no meaning. There's only me.
 
Do I have a meaning?
 
Is there a meaning to my life?
 
I don't know.
 
I don't want to see Emi again. I don't want to hear her prattling voice fussing over me. I don't want to hear her laughter, or see her being happy. Happiness is bad, it keeps me from feeling. I need to keep feeling. It's what makes art.
 
I'm tired.
 
It took me a while to get the knife set up. There's a pillar in the center of my room. I've taped it there at about neck height. The canvas is on the ground. It's the biggest one I could find. I put a tarp under it. I don't want the next people in this studio apartment to find me in the floorboards.
 
The painting is ready. It only needs one more thing. If I do it right, I should stay conscious long enough to lie down on the canvas correctly. I hope I'll have enough time to see my last painting before I black out. It's the thing I'm giving my life to create. My last statement of myself to the world.
 
I hope that Emi's not the one to find me. I hope it's one of the other students, or the police, or someone like that. I hope someone from the school comes by and finds me before Emi does.
 
I hope that someone here in Tokyo misses me enough to come look for me.