Wednesday 17 July 2013

White

A friend once told me she liked to paint herself each morning,
a colour for a mood.
Red was porous and bleeding out.
Purple was energizing; good for what she knew would be a hell of a day.
Yellow was for cheerful and happy, like dandelions or buttercups.
Green was for sex, feeling fecund, wanting to grow something inside.
Orange was for formal, evoking good taste.
Brown was for earth, getting soiled inside, letting the hubris compost,
a time for waiting, a time for caring for everything.
Black was her favorite, a time for nothing at all.

I liked to drink vodka most of the time.
She liked to paint as you know.
I took to dropping acid so I could see colours.
And then when I became too paranoid the vodka would help.

That's why I found her.
I was afraid of my colours.
I did not like threatening my world.
But when I finally gave up I found white was my best,
the colour of explosion,
the colour that breaks things apart
when the atom lets go.

When I admitted you were right.
I had done all those things,
things became white.
Over time I allowed the other colours to bleed in.
Red became the suffering I caused.
Blue became the sea that swallowed what was lost.

Black I avoided and avoid still, at all cost.