Chicken Scratch
By Ellen Zeng
Introduction
Sparked by a breakup, but not a story about one.
A personal narrative about art and a love letter to Rome.
CW: Victim blaming
Before Rome, art was a hobby. At least, that was the label I assigned to keep it from consuming my life. I crawled back to art when I needed a break from everything else, but kept it separate from the core of my identity. I shrugged it off, “I’ll need a job eventually.” But when the opportunity came to study abroad for three months, I chose Rome, Italy.
What a dream to study art in one of the birthplaces of Western civilization, to dedicate myself to the pursuit of something I loved so dearly but couldn’t have. I found myself not just happy but fulfilled.
My art class sat at the feet of the Spanish Steps one day, drawing Fontana della Barcaccia. My classmates passed a Vogue Blue cigarette around, and laughed as tourists took our pictures as if we were the monument they had come so far to see.
I couldn’t get the fountain’s shape quite right.
I don’t like the way you sketch. It’s chicken scratch
My friend pointed to my non-committal pencil marks. It was true. I wasn’t seeing the bigger picture, the form and shape of the fountain. Instead, I was making it up as I went.
My friend’s lines were confident. Fluid and directional. If she didn’t like something, she erased it and started again.
What’s
the point if you don’t give it your all?
I was in a two-year long, long distance relationship at the time. For a while, opposites attracted. My boyfriend told me he hated art the first week he met me. And that was fine, because I didn’t understand football. We joked we could never work, and fell in love anyway.
Things changed one night. I can only remember the sequence of events from telling the story so many times, but I still cringe at the thought of the older Italian man, and can’t seem to remember what his face looks like. My ex’s face fills in the details instead: his kind eyes, fluffy hair, and nose like mine. The two men’s features mesh together like warm, wet clay. Then they go up in flames and turn to ash.
The culprit was the older man, sure. But it was my boyfriend who took a hammer to the relationship we built and shattered me as collateral.
So, I ran. Abroad, it was too easy to escape. Escape my friends, my feelings, and the place where it all happened: Rome.
You know it isn’t your fault, right?
A thinks otherwise. Fuck him
Paris,France*
*Yes,IwenttoPariswithmyex-boyfriend
This is so romantic, and I just don’t feel like sharing it with you anymore poof!
The eiffel tower turned off on us. I laughed my ass off.
I shared moments with strangers without a word
It was Florence, Italy where I stopped running.
The trance of the beats overlapped with hypnotizing melodies. The perfect backdrop for a deep conversation. While commercial clubs were all about appearances and drunk makeout sessions, in techno, we faced the DJ and didn’t pay each other much mind. We wore black because it was the music we came for.
Outside Limonaia Villa Strozzi, a villa-turned-night-club, a childhood friend and I took a short break from dancing.
“I haven’t felt creative since coming here,” my friend admitted. She moved to Florence for a masters in fashion photography — and to finally close the long distance gap with her boyfriend. I understood how she felt. Before coming to Rome, I would tell people about my love for art but couldn’t remember the last time I actually sat down and did it.
“It’s those cuddles.” I half joked. “They numb you to life.” (Of course, cuddles are a catch-all for all the dopamine a partner provides). The safety net of a relationship was a painkiller. That’s why being single felt so jarring to me. The anesthetic wore off, and I felt years’ worth of emotions all at once. On the plus side, I was more in tune with my art than ever before.
“You’re making me want to break up with him,” she laughed.
Sorry, Marco.
Traveling gave me quick and easy dopamine shots, along with the adrenaline of meeting new people, but it just wasn’t enough to keep me afloat. I left each city more and more exhausted.
Eventually, I stayed in Rome. Studying abroad was about building a relationship with a city, and I couldn’t do that by running away every weekend.
I slowly fell in love with this place. Rome’s columns were my favorite, especially when cipollino marble veins wrapped themselves in acanthus leaves and were topped with Victory wings.
It’s a special feeling to be able to interpret the details, akin to knowing every curve and nook of a partner’s body. I learned Rome’s history, the emperors and mythological tales that sarcophagi, frescos, and sculptures referenced. I was surrounded by stories waiting to be uncovered.
I met Rome when it was a work-in-progress, preparing for Jubilee 2025. Sculptures were entrapped in scaffolding, entire fountains were blocked by construction, and overall, the city was a mess. Sometimes, art is beautiful like this. Unfinished art lets viewers make it their own, interpreting the negative space as they wish.
But love is about taking things at face value. I loved Rome, not just for its picturesque postcard scenes but the grime, chaos, and everything in-between. At the same time, instead of idealizing my ex-boyfriend as who he could have been, I started seeing him for who he was.
This eternal city will forever hold both my most tragic heartbreak and my purest love.
In the beginning of the semester, my art professor lectured about the idea of art as obsession. Horror vacui, the need to fill the page, characterized this art. These artists become possessed with the process of making art, painstakingly packing their artworks with detail to the point of insanity.
I didn’t at the time, but two months later, I understood. I made art as if it was the only thing that could keep me alive. I never left the apartment without my camera, sketchbook, and pens, because sometimes the urge to create consumed me.
I sculpted, painted, and drew with such intensity it scared me. I woke up everyday ready to pour into my work. My friends and I shared nights drawing until we physically couldn’t any more.
Obsession, I learned, isn’t a bad thing. It’s about giving in to the madness and refusing to water down who you are. I started telling strangers I study art instead of the pre-professional bullshit I do back home. I dug through years of complacency to find the most raw version of myself.
Before Rome, I lived without being alive. Though my heart still hurts and my head still spins, I’m the most me
I’ve ever been. So thank you Rome, for teaching me to stop chicken scratching my life away.
Because what’s the point if you don’t give it your all?