Spiritual Graffiti

“Leave it,” Javi said, leaning on the pressure washer. “It’s half art, half therapy.”

“It’s a job,” I said, rolling my sleeves. The underpass wall screamed with thick black letters: NOT MINE NOT MINE NOT MINE. The city seal flapped on a tarp nearby like a scolding parent.

“You ever think about the stuff we scrub off?” Javi asked. “Like, what if the wall needed to say it?”

“The wall doesn’t have to pay rent,” I said, and clicked the washer on.

Cold mist kissed my face. The paint ran in gray tears. My phone buzzed against my thigh until, finally, Javi tossed me a look. “Answer it before it jumps off a bridge.”

“Hi, Mom,” I said.

“Leila, baby. Are you on your way to the church? The résumé clinic starts at nine. Pastor says he’ll put in a word with the city council ... ”

“I’m at work,” I said. “Again. On the city’s wall. Again.”

“You could be in the office, not under bridges. Your father didn’t ... ”

“Raise quitters,” I filled in. “Or artists.”

“We’re just practical,” she said. “I don’t understand why you keep clinging to that… phase. And you’re still seeing that therapist? You know people will talk.”

“They already talk,” I said, watching the letters bleed. “About things that aren’t mine.”

“What’s not yours?”

“Their stories.”

A pause, thin as paper. “Dinner on Sunday?”

“I can’t,” I said. “I’m painting.”

Silence turned into a sigh. “Love you anyway,” she said, half joke, half plea.

“Love you,” I said, and hung up.

Mr. Rhee’s white truck pulled under the bridge, official orange light ticking. He stepped out with a clipboard like a surrender flag. “Leila. Rally’s at five. We need this wall clean. Mayor’s people want no statements in the background.”

“Graffiti is not a statement?” Javi muttered.

“Not this one,” Mr. Rhee said. “It reads like an accusation.”

“It reads like a heartbeat,” I said.

“Our heartbeat says liability,” Mr. Rhee replied. “Finish it.”

He left tire dust and directives. Javi watched me. “You okay?”

“I have pictures painted on the walls of my heart,” I said.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said, and went back to spraying.

“Hey,” someone said behind us.

A kid in a sun-bleached hoodie, backpack slung loose. Too young to shave, old enough to know which exits to take. He pointed at the wall. “That’s mine.”

“Hilarious,” I said. “So’s every guy with a Sharpie.”

“No,” he said, stepping closer. “I mean it. It’s mine. I paint ‘NOT MINE’ so people see their stuff and let it go.”

“Tagger with a conscience,” Javi said. “That’s new.”

The kid shrugged. “I don’t tag names. I tag truths.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

He hesitated, then: “Echo.”

“Of course it is,” I said.

“You get it?” he asked me, ignoring the sarcasm. “Like, you got stuff in you that’s not you, right?”

I stared at him.

“Someone else’s graffiti,” he said, tapping his temple. “Not mine, not mine.”

The washer howled. I turned it off. “Go home,” I told him. “There’s going to be cops crawling all over here later.”

“Are you gonna buff all of it?” he asked. His eyes flicked to the letters like they were faces.

“It’s the job,” I said again, and hated how it sounded.

Echo toed a pebble. “My mom says the same thing,” he said. “About working at a call center that screams at her lungs. ‘It’s the job, Echo.’”

“You in school?” Javi asked.

“Sometimes,” Echo said. “Sometimes I’m in hallways where the dean’s agenda is to make me feel like a statistic.”

He looked at me like he was handing me a can. I remembered Dr. Chen’s office, the plant trying to die in the corner, the relentless clock.

“Whose voice is that?” Dr. Chen had asked. “The one that says you’re irresponsible, that your art is a tantrum.”

“My dad’s,” I’d said, staring at the carpet. “My ex’s. The church lady with the sugar cookies. The mayor on TV. The guy in the comments calling me lazy. Someone else’s reality, someone else’s agenda, someone else’s vendetta. Not mine. But it lives in my head.”

“What happens if you say: not mine?”

“I feel like a vandal,” I’d said.

“What if you’re a restorer?” he’d asked. “What if you paint over what never belonged and leave what does?”

Under the bridge, the wind picked up, carrying the smell of wet concrete and diesel. Echo watched me like we had all the time, like he had none.

I handed him a mask. “If you’re staying, you cover your face.”

He slipped it on, eyes crinkling. “That’s almost love,” he said.

“It’s OSHA,” I said.

We sprayed in tandem, him holding the hose steady when the pressure kicked, me showing him how to feather the edges so the ghost of the letters didn’t haunt the wall. Water pooled around our boots. Cars passed overhead like whales.

“You ever feel like there’s music in you that isn’t yours?” Echo asked. “Like a commercial jingle lodged in your rib cage.”

“All the time,” I said. “Compositions I did not write. But I live with them every day.”

“So you turn up something else,” he said. “That’s what tags are.”

Mr. Rhee came back at three with a more expensive frown. “Progress,” he said, inspecting. “Faster.”

“You ever think about why the mayor cares so much about a wall?” I asked.

He looked at me over the clipboard. “Agenda is a better word when it’s yours.”

He left again. Echo’s eyes followed him. “You gonna do it?”

“Do what?”

“Put something of yours up.”

“I don’t do this anymore,” I said, gesturing to the paints in my head. “I clean.”

Echo unzipped his backpack and pulled out cans, rattling like bones. He set them down. “Someone else’s bones,” he said softly. “They scratched poems on mine.”

His sleeves slid back; there were faint thin lines, healed but not gone. I caught his head tilt: go ahead, look. I did, then met his eyes.

“Someone else’s vendetta,” I said.

“Not mine,” he replied.

We finished the buff. The wall went quiet, an erased chalkboard. Mr. Rhee would be happy. The mayor would be neutral. The cameras would see nothing and call it cleanliness.

Echo stood in the blankness like a pilgrim at a white altar. “You can leave,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

“I’ll get fired,” I said.

“For what?” Javi called from the truck, pretending to reorganize bungee cords. “For your lunch break?”

“You told me to leave it,” I said.

“I said think about it,” he corrected. “I also said nothing I can be deposed for.”

I looked at the wall. In my head, my mother arranged forks in the right drawer. My father’s silence hovered, heavy as an unplayed song. The church’s fluorescent kindness hummed. The mayor’s smile gleamed like a blade.

“Someone else’s graffiti,” I said out loud.

“Not mine,” Echo said.

“Someone else’s reality.”

“Not mine.”

“Someone else’s agenda.”

“Not mine.”

“Someone else’s vendetta.”

“Not mine.”

“That I live with every day of my life,” I finished, and picked up a can.

“Color?” Echo asked.

“Bone,” I said. “Then blood.”

We worked fast, the way you do when time is a landlord. Echo outlined a ribcage across the concrete, not anatomical, more myth. I filled the spaces with waveforms and staff lines, a song trapped under bone, annotated with little marginalia: This part is your dad’s. This part is the kid who laughed in seventh grade. This part is the internet. In the center, a heart, not pink, but a red so dark it remembered cherries and warning signs.

“What are we writing?” Echo asked.

“They wrote me first,” I said. “Let me answer.”

I painted careful letters inside the ribs:

These pictures painted on the walls of my heart ... brushstrokes I did not apply.

Below: I restore. Not erase.

“These songs recorded in the depth of my soul ... compositions I did not write,” I said, painting. “I remix.”

And then, in the skull we sketched at the top, poems scratched on the bones ... We revise. We refuse.

Echo stepped back. “Damn.”

“It’s loud,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Silence was killing me.”

Sirens passed on a parallel street, indifferent. Mr. Rhee’s truck did not return. The rally chants rose, a crowd practicing slogans they’d forget next week.

My phone buzzed again. Mom.

I answered. “Hey.”

“I don’t hear the clinic,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Under a bridge,” I said. “Making something that’s mine.”

“Oh,” she said. “Leila, you know how people ... ”

“People can talk,” I said gently. “I’ll live. I’m not coming Sunday. I’m not applying to Pastor’s program. I am seeing Dr. Chen. I love you.”

Silence. Then: “Who taught you to talk to your mother like that?”

“No one,” I said, and smiled at Echo, who smiled back beneath his mask. “That’s the point.”

After dusk, the rally caravans were gone. The wall glowed under the streetlight, ribs like wings. Javi whistled low. “If they ask, raccoons did it.”

“They always do,” I said.

Echo packed his cans. “What are you calling it?”

“Autobiography,” I said. “Volume One.”

He slung his backpack on. “I’m gonna hit the skate park,” he said. “You need anything?”

“Yeah,” I said, pulse steady for the first time all day. “If anyone tries to paint on me, tell them I’m under restoration.”

He laughed. “Not yours.”

“Not mine,” I agreed.

He ran off, soundless as a rumor. Javi climbed into the truck. “You know Rhee is going to lose his mind tomorrow.”

“I’ll bring donuts,” I said.

“And your resignation?”

“Or a proposal,” I said. “A mural program. Permits. Stipends. Instead of buffing, we commission.”

Javi blinked. “Agenda.”

“Mine,” I said.

We sat for a minute, admiring the wall. Cars hummed. Somewhere above us, a bus speaker leaked a pop song, a jingle drilling into the air. I listened, and for once it didn’t stick. The bones on the concrete caught the streetlight and made their own music.

I put my palm against the paint. It was still tacky, still becoming. I could live with that every day of my life.

- Julia O’Hara 2025

THANK YOU for reading my work. I am a global nomad/permanent traveler, or Coddiwombler, if you will, and I move from place to place about every three months. I am currently in Peru and heading to Chile in a few days and from there, who knows? I enjoy writing articles, stories, songs and poems about life, spirituality and my travels. You can find my songs linked below. Feel free to like and subscribe on any of the platforms. And if you are inspired to, tips are always appreciated, but not necessary. I just like sharing.

YouTube Top Song List.

https://www.YouTube.com/results?search_query=julia+o%27hara+top+songs

Amazon PlayList

https://www.amazon.com//music/player/artists/B0D5JP6QYN/julia-o'hara

Spotify PlayList

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2sVdGmG90X3BJVn457VxWA

You can also purchase my books here:

https://www.lulu.com /spotlight/julie-ohara

I am also a member of Buy Me A Coffee – a funding site where you can “buy me a cup of coffee”

https:www.buymeacoffee.com/JulieOHara