I sat in a field, picking at scabs,
letting red pool around my old orange shoes,
tainting yellow dandelions and the green between them an ugly shade of maroon.
The sky above was a clear blue,
clearer than my head
as I stared at the hues of indigo and violet marring my skin like a display, a show.

It’s unfair,
the way the world is so colourful,
unmindful of the individuals.
The rainbow is its aphrodisiac,
keeping it turned on- I mean, turning!-
when my world is but in shades of grey and black.

I walked home with viole(n)t thoughts in my mind
as indigo settled in next to blue for the night.
I ignored the gorgeous green around me and, instead,
saw yellow ambulances and orange cones in the moonlight
where I imagined my body will lie after I jump,
after my skull cracks against pavement, my sight, red before it turns black.

It’s unfair,
the way everyone can enjoy the colors
when they blind me, burn me, hurt me with their intensity
until I want nothing but to strip them away,
throw them away so that I won’t have to lie when people ask me:
“Look around, isn’t the world beautiful?”
Because no. No it’s not.
It’s so ugly I’d rather die than to pretend I see the colors everyone else seem to breathe.
My world is monochrome and I want nothing to do with it.

I walked up the stairs, hands red with dried blood
and I toed my orange shoes off, noticing the mud,
when a flash of yellow broke through my woe.
A dandelion with its stem still green kept me company in my time of keen pain.
And although I still felt blue,
in my chest warmth bloomed for the first time since self-inflicted indigo bruises and
violet-outlined contusions wormed their way into my life.

Without noticing it all this while,
I wasn’t alone, working my way through the day.
Without knowing it all this time,
a dandelion followed me, making sure I was okay.

So the next time I feel the dark, the dust, the grime
threaten to engulf my colors whole,
I’ll know to look for dandelions,
‘cause no one is ever really alone in their hellhole.