An Artist's Laundry

They asked her why she did it. She ran her fingers through her hair hiding her wrists and didn’t really know what to say except, let me show you.
See, she was an artist, a painter to be exact. She used every color in her $30 paint set, mixing all afternoon and painting all night on paper, canvas, whatever she could get her hands on. In general, she was good. Her style was dramatic and mysterious but always sincere. She burned a hot streak of red down the paper, and the rest of the painting came to her instantly. Quickly and precisely, she made purple, orange, and blue strokes down the easel. She hardly thought about it; every movement was fluid and necessary. They waited impatiently watching her seamless painting come to life.
Although she was clean on paper, her clothes were often grossly overlooked while she painted. She always sported paint specks and blotches. Even in her room, the stains blemished the carpet and walls. Sometimes the little spots would bother her so much, she would avoid the den where the paints always were just to liberate herself from the greens and reds and whites. But she would always stumble back into that den eventually, and like a medication, she would twist open the orange’s cap with anxiety and exhilaration. After a long night of dipping and swishing, she would put down her brush and take off her dirty clothes, stained with little drops of perspective. The bathroom horded piles of clothes. Often, she couldn’t even close the door properly because the dirty clothes. Clothes and paint, she hated them.
One day when they weren’t looking, the clothes and paint made her do it. She wasn’t the type who would, but there was too much paint and too many piles that day. Her hand hovered next to the paper as she thought about it. Her poor skin, it had no chance. It tore so easily, and the blood bubbled so quickly, it was hardly memorable. She just remembered sitting there on the dirty, paint soiled clothes crying sickening tears. Her eyes hurt so badly afterward, but she felt the relief immediately. All her toxins were temporarily gone, all that bad blood. Quickly, she rinsed off her arm thoroughly under the cold tap and went back to the den.
“Done,” she announced stepping to the side. They viewed her work with predisposed scrutiny and beady eyes. However, she was uninterested in their verdict. Although she wasn’t very good at laundry, she wasn’t an addict either. She would always be a painter with her paint set and dirty clothes.