Drawings

Deer (Inktober 2025-05)

ByJesse M October 18, 2025October 18, 2025

A brush painting in ink and ink wash, showing a young man of color with half-mature antlers (or "spikes") and short hair. He looks up serenely at a cluster of maple leaves in the upper right corner of the frame. The number zero-five appears in the space to his right. Tree trunks are visible in the background, and ink splatters add texture to the page.

Today I am not here to teach, nor to learn from any teacher. I am not here as the hand of creation, nor, for that matter, to serve any agenda at all, under the eye of anything. I am here as a creature of play, as purpose crafting itself in the current.

These leaves arrest me, time stops me before them, and now I am a leaf. I am ravenous for the world to devour me as it is devoured, born from the bud, a violet ecstasy unfolding like a drop of water at the point of contact.

I am the changing season, I am the autumn sun striking the anvil. I am the endless yesterday to somebody’s brighter tomorrow.