“You can’t put a leash
on art!” she cried. “The moment
you do so it
turns from a majestic
lion into a grumpy
house cat. Tell me,
would you rather
see grumpy house cats
or majestic lions
when you go out
exploring?”

“Do I really have to
answer that?” He said. “Look,
I’ve had just enough
of your
shitty analogies. I’m
really starting to
think the people
at the gallery were
right.”

Those words delivered
quite the hot
stab into her artistic
heart.

As an artist she
was already quite
famous
for being rejected at the
free gallery
for presenting
a poem about
climate change
written on a large, thick
cardboard.

Nothing wrong so
far, but
the letters in the poem
were formed with living
earthworms
and maggots
and centipedes
and small insects glued to
the cardboard.

The committee rejected
her project
for animal…