What We Were Not Taught

(For the ones who felt too much, and were told to "tone it down.")

We were taught how to paint,

but not how to bleed.

They showed us how to hold a brush,

but never how to hold grief without apologizing for it.

They graded our technique.

Our balance.

Our use of white space.

But not once did they ask: What did it cost you to make this?

We were taught to “talk about our work”—but only if it was clean.

Safe.

Conceptual.

As if clarity was currency,and mystery was a weakness.

No one said:

“Cut deep.”

“Feel more than what’s safe.”

“Let it ruin you a little, and see what remains.”

They applauded the intellectual.

They whispered about the emotional.

“Too personal,” they said.

Too raw. Too soft. Too much.

No one taught us how to paint when our hands were shaking.

Or when the canvas looked like a confession.

Or when the blue bled like a wound we couldn’t name.

We were taught to submit.

But not to surrender.

To critique, but never to cry.

They told us not to make it about ourselves.

But what if we are the medium?

What if the ache is the point?

What if silence isn’t passive, but power dressed in velvet?

What if we don’t want to explain ourselves to anyone anymore?

No one taught us that the mess could be holy.

That rage could be red on linen.

That longing could streak across canvas and still be called art.

They didn’t teach us how to burn gracefully.

How to stay in the room when it starts to unravel.

How to make something beautiful out of what's still breathing pain.

But here we are.

Painting anyway.

Bleeding anyway.

Soft— but never safe.

We are what they tried to silence.

And we’re louder than ever

even when we don’t say a word.

-Dura Ki Hana