In my younger years I used to feel as if this was going on inside of my body, as if all the hate in my heart was burning my insides. That each little subject or situation in my head was its own fire with its own pattern, just burning inside. The one in the middle kind of leaking onto others around it, connected but separate. All that hate and fire just turning the hexagons into charred objects. I used to bury this fire, bury this hate with vodka or which ever liquor I could get hold of so I never really had to stare at it. I would just push it down until it would consume me and make me angry at everything for no reason. At the beginning of my sobriety this was the toughest thing for me to face, to stare at all this fire inside of me. To do this without my crutch, to go at it alone. I am happy I have confronted this to see it with clear eyes for the first time, it doesn't mean its gone it just means I see it now. 

Acrylic on canvas. Paint has a mixture of sugar which gives the hexagons a rough scale like texture, hang it in a very well lit room with lots of natural lighting.

painting and poem by Joshua Browder