You were navy when we met, the color of musky rain and warm evening skies and shadows flowing through New York City streets. Lost in a sea of pastel blazers and neon dresses I fell free into your blue, reaching out for something deeper, mesmerized by the stars I could only see in the dark.
And then blue turned to purple, of scented candles and magic tricks and chandelier-lit velvet carpets. And on that carpet we danced, purple mist filling the atmosphere.
Then purple turned to red. The color of rose petals and fancy dresses and bleeding hearts. We read scarlet books and wrote scarlet letters, sang red songs and drank red wine. Red was the color of a rose-tinted world and we wandered it like hopeless-red romantics.
We shattered when we were white, like cold marble floors. Like knuckles holding on against the inevitable. Like shattered glass shards scattered out on the ground with a “warning: watch your step” sign keeping the unsuspecting passerby’s safe. White was your color when I last saw you.
I collect your navy, your purple, your red, your white – and paint the chipped walls of my apartment. A navy base, painted over with purple, covered over with red, and then a final coat in white, so the colors show through if the paint catches the light.
Then I head back out into the world, in search of another color to pour out on those white walls. I walk through the grey crowd and the pastel blazers and the neon dresses, looking for a shadow of another color that sends me freefalling.