Giant Pencil Drawing of Me

In my late teens, I lived with a man in his thirties who was very abusive toward me. He had his charming and romantic moments, however, and in one of these he drew a portrait of me on some kind of artboard that was about two feet by three feet.

When we split up, I put the portrait in the trash because I felt so much anger against him. But as the years went by and no one else ever drew a portrait of me (or wrote a poem or composed a song) I came to realize how rare an expression that portrait was and I have always wished I kept it, despite never wanting to see the artist again.

Especially now that I am forty, I realize that no one else will ever admire the beauty of my youth so much that they make a work of art based on it. There are many lost objects in my past - including an entire storage locker full of childhood memories - but I have thought of that portrait most often and in most poignant terms through the years.

Last seen in Louisville, Kentucky in 1987.

Sparrow, Kentucky