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Fame after Silence

If they didn’t die… would it even matter?

If they hadn’t suffered, if their lives weren’t filled with such darkness, would we still whisper their names like prayers today?

Tell me… if Van Gogh hadn’t lived in such loneliness,
if his nights hadn’t been soaked in madness,
if his heart hadn’t shattered quietly in corners no one saw
would we still stop and stare at Starry Night as if it holds the sky together?

If he had lived… full, happy, fulfilled
would those strokes still bleed with sorrow the way we feel them now?

Is it really his art we worship?
Or is it the shadow of his life that falls over every canvas?

He’s not here.
He never knew the fame, the museums, the books written in his name.
He died with paint on his hands and nothing in his pockets.
What good is all this recognition when the man it belongs to is long gone?

And Plath…

If Sylvia hadn’t left the way she did,
would we still read her poems like sacred wounds?

It’s cruel, isn’t it?
How the world devours the suffering and spits out praise when it’s too late?

If it weren’t for their pain…
Would we still remember them?
Would we still claim their art changed us?

Or do we only love what we couldn’t save?

Is it really their work we hold close?
Or is it the tragedy?
The story?
The silence they left behind?

God… sometimes I wonder,

Do they matter now

only because they didn’t matter when they were alive?

We say it’s their art.
But maybe…

Maybe it’s just their pain.

Perhaps, for the existence of beauty, the world needs pain.


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