Dark chocolatey skin bears the flag of red
Coloured, a sin; these feelings are cultivated and bred
So they're brought to toil on white soil
Reminiscing the scent of their native land, the sweet patchouli oil.
As they trudge through barren land, lost hope and ****** soles mark their path
This coloured discrimination instigates fair feelings of wrath
A helplessly agitated mind and yet they stand still
With wistful eyes, devoid of their free will.
At night, they sing to themselves songs of a land far away
As they drift off to a restless sleep, dreaming of being back there someday
Scalding feelings of entitlement and vengeance have taken birth and clouded minds
Working on indigo and cotton fields, on merriment and mirth have been drawn white blinds.
No matter how clean the records, the message is loudly heard
"When looked upon as a blue jay, you can never be a mockingbird"
These words passed down through generations deny them their say
Day to night and night to day but time couldn't change the black man's dismay.
Wanted is colour in life but shunned is coloured life
This clash of colours holds no value, only adding on to people's strife
So while i stand here trying to fathom out the meaning of it all
I hope, someday, realisation will take down this coloured wall.

Before, I couldn’t see you
I would write about your eyes
Your smile
Your hair
All cliche, all flat
I couldn’t write
How I tried
Now I see you...

I see a green mantis
I see your freckled patina in that photo with the perfect light
I see you engaging the waiter in conversation
I see your long limbs loosely crossed
Cradling your herbal tea and segmenting your orange
I see you

The soft nape of your neck is in my dreams

I see you swimming ahead in the river,
I see your joy in that, and remember me needing to turn back
I see us crouched on the railway sleeper,
The last of the sun crossing us
While the washing up waits
The beer dries on our lips
We sit looking back at your home

I see the young and sexless person you told me about
Your nose in a book on the family holiday

I see the flicker of self-doubt
the slow rising tear that doesn’t spill over
being all things,
mother, worker, friend, lover

I see all the things you are not
that I projected onto you
Now I see you

I scrub and scrub,
until my skin stings,

wondering why,
I don't look "clean,"

darker skin, darker hair,
they've led me to believe
there must be something ***** here

I speak colour, I smell light
I see at speeds that are out of sight

I speak Blue, I shout Green
I sing Yellow, and Lime in-between

I hear Redder, I taste Whiter
I dance Lilac, I climb Amber

I run Orange, I walk Silver
Saffron, Fuchsia, Turquoise, Magenta

I speak colour, I whisper flavour
I sleep in spectrum, I dream wider

Take a colour, chose a shade
See each light from which you're made.

Long and lithe fingers,
comfort moulded into cones,
is where art kisses geometry
and meets one of its own.

Her hands are to touch
manicured and glazed,
you feel home and lost
a Pharaoh now, and next a waif

The nails, you find and wonder
filed for a student and trimmed.
Not a wisp of colour
bare as a bone, naked and skinned.

Snug in a life song,
a pallbearer of untold griefs,
they are a stark sight
of colourless coral reefs.  

On but a blue moon,
they’re a savoury rare,
when hungry eyes feast
on the riotous fair.

Why, one day, I ask thee?
She would smile and wouldn’t tell.
‘Never felt like’,
is her No Comment.

and suddenly i can see them, colours
like i've been so oblivious to their existence before.
i notice the yellow rim around my towels
and the redness of my lips,
the shampoo bottle is actually blue
and my scrunchies reflect deep purple.
like my eyes and my soul have become desensitised to the beauty surrounding my life.
A life full of colour.
I don't want to merely exist anymore,
I am happy to be alive.

red was the blood, like blossoms in July
orange tinted lips, the ones that told me good bye
yellow was the stairwell, the last place you went
green was your text, the last text you sent
blue were your tears, shimmering like gold
purple was your face as your body lay cold
white were the lilies, for which you were named
white were the lilies, the ones I lay on your grave.