NO ONE EVER KNOWS

She was born on the coldest eve of winter, she never recovered from the effects of her first day. It was snowing faster than her shivering soul, heavier than the troubles that weighed her down, and colder than her heart would become when she tried to breathe later in life.

For Kaela, art was always a struggle and it took her many a year to see stark connections between her personal reality and her art. She lived her years in conflict and resolution, thinking about the many people in her life and many people that were out of her life now. It was always a struggle and it was the only way she knew to live, to exist was to create.

You remember things that never happened and when you're done with it all you always paint tragedies.

She spent days thinking about who she was. Was she the granddaughter of Charles and Joanne Elizabeth Dujka? Was she the daughter of Jackie Elizabeth Calendine and Michael Cedar? Who was she? The question hung over her head like the icicle ready to leave the cave ceiling. She did not know whether it was a crisis of identity or a crisis without name. After all a crisis was just another word for chaos and she sometimes believed that there was no chaos in the universe, rather organized disorder. So she just figured that she was Kaela Elizabeth Cedar. Until one day she decided that she didn't like her name very much and that she must go by Ella. It had a nice ring to it and people seemed to pronounce it much better.

When she was thirteen she had reoccurring dreams of a ghost pigeon sitting beyond her windowsill, mocking her softly.

Her confirmation came when a friend in middle school wrote a song out of her name. It was called 'Ella the good fella.' She didn't care much for being called fella, but she was appreciative of the song. It was a love letter to her heart. As it turns out the friend thought of her as nothing but a friend. She found that out when her best friend started to date him. This was the first time she would hear her own heart break. It was painful, and she cried for days. She didn't want to live in a world where she didn't have love. She locked herself in the room and wouldn't eat anything the day she found it all out.

She always felt that love was her demise, but more than that she felt that everyone woman and man felt the same way.

It lasted a few weeks and then she could barely remember him. Her friend dumped him and he came for her. It was too late. He hadn't known that she liked him and had gone for her friend because her friend had seemed like an easy target, so to speak. Ella wasn't flattered by any of this. Rather she was horrified that he would treat her friend's heart so recklessly. It was then that she realized that her loyalty must always lie with her friends first. This was also the time that she finally understood the lyrics to a certain Spice Girls song.

She saw the coincidences that aligned her life and she could do much less than roll her eyes.

She felt proud of herself that she had discovered the secrets of relationships. Little did she know that she was in for a lot more before it would all be over.

You saw the rose petals glazed over her eyes and it was that particular day that you learned to read in between the lines.

Her paintings split storylines like splinters caught under softer skin.

She felt that she never lived in the world; she was running wild inside the slightest hills in the meadows of her mind.