Sometimes I wonder
how the clouds
keep on keeping on
up there
alone.
But now I see, and
understand
the
rain.

First and foremost in everyone's mind
but mine
is the Green of the Crayola crayon.
As Green as factories and skyscrapers, like
man
and his tendency to take over.

Green looks different through my eyes.

I see the Green of a clover.
Green that is
alive.
Bouncing and bobbing and buoyant
as duckweed on the waves.
Promising and purposeful and persistent
as the first shoots of grass.
The Green that shows in the people with
bravery and bright smiles and bursting with
life.
I wish I was
lucky
enough to have more of the Green of a
clover.

I see the Green of an emerald.
The depth of Green,
the bottomless bottom of the ocean;
Green where I
drown in my thoughts.
The emerald city where my insignificance and significance
crush me all the same and I am
smothered in questions
questions
questions.
So many drown in the shallow Green of seaweed.  The Green of
money and makeup and my god have you seen Melissa's haircut?
The dollar bill Green of
envy and greed
that stops so many so many from diving any
deeper.

I see the Green of ferns and the Green of cacti.
Soft, soothing Green of
enough sleep
and
tea in the mornings
or
sharp, sinister Green of
alone
and
you should have studied.

I see the Green of Christmas trees
that should mean family and giving and light but
instead
means pretend to like her and
smile at the right times and
why are you so
unfriendly I mean shy.
The dark, for everGreen of the most
wonderful
time of the year.

I see the Green of my eyes.
The bluish goldish brownish color
that everyone sees a little
differently
but that's ok.
Because everyone sees Green a little
differently.

He
is always there.
Not in a
hand holding,
eye smiling
type of way.  More like
a misleading shadow,
an unshakable ache.
He gets me when I am
weakest.
One tiny misstep and I lose my
balance
and he is there to push me
down
knowing full well that
no one
will help me up.

He slinks in on the blackest of
nights
like rejection.
Climbs through the locked window,
slips under my bed
like the invite that doesn't exist.
I toss and turn all night,
knowing he is there and knowing that he will
always
be there.

Ironically,
I see him most in rooms crowded with the color of
voices.
I try to open my mouth to speak but he fills it with
cotton
like a roll of the eyes.
So
I sit in my gray corner of silence
watching him from the corner of my vision.
He looms and lingers
like the empty chair at lunch that doesn't exist
and I am trapped tongue tied terrified.
Torrents of tears.

He knows the ones closest to me the best.
Better than I know them -
better than they know me.
He keeps me from them:
Christmas parties,
Sunday dinners,
“home,”
it's just me, myself and I.
He
gives them fire to fuel their disappointment.
And suddenly I am no longer
quiet
I am
unfriendly.
And suddenly I am no longer
shy
I am
antisocial.
I know it is he who gives them these words,
fills them with lies that I do
nothing
to counter.
Does that make them true?

He,
the Alone,
knows me better than most.
Than all.
I have gotten to know him, too.
He lashes out, fills my days with black,
but only because he, too, is
alone.
He hurts anyone who gets
too close
to him because he doesn't know how to be anything but
Alone.

It's okay, I understand, I've been there.
I am there.
Sometimes I lash out, too.