When we're mad, we see red.
When we're sad, we are blue.
When we're healthy, we're in the pink.
When we have money, we're in the black.
When we're broke, we're in the red.
When we're scared, we're yellow.
We get green with envy and grey with uncertainty.

We can be...
True blue
Optimistically rosy
Perfectly golden
Tickled pink
White trash
Blackballed
Red hot.

Transparent even...

Look at us.
We're masterpieces!
We're colorful, colorless, proverbial off-beat sky-hung rainbows.
In the spectrum, off the palette, layer upon layer of brushed on, sprayed on, finger daubed works of breathing, loving, dying, living art wanting to be admired, put on display, protected, loved and adored.

We live our lives in color.

You have to be wanted to be cast aside.
You have to be hurt to be healed.
You have to be lost to be found.
You have to be ignorant to be taught.

You can be lonely in a crowded room.
You can cry with a smile on your face.
You can have nothing when you have it all.
You can be scared while being brave.

You must have it to lose it.
You must know it to forget it.
You must aim for it to miss it.
You must face it to defeat it.

Understanding, but yet misunderstood.
Loved, but yet unloved.
Alive, but yet dead.
Here, but yet gone.

I didn't hear the storm advance
Wind blowing
Trees bending
Rain falling
Until I stood in it.

I didn't feel the hurt approach
Fears showing
Heart rending
Tears falling
Until I fell in it.

I never saw the sky clear
Stars glowing
Soul mending
Love calling
Until I looked at it.

I never knew I'd made it through
Until it was behind me.

This, I can't remember from when or where it came.
These have no memories to share.
Those make the sad movie start behind these eyes.
That...don't know why I even cared.

A box of laughter.
A box of pain.
Dusty recollections
and left-side brain.
-Me

Stop to peer in,
black hole,
dank air rises.
Is that dark water below or words of babble?
Heard her before,
dusky voice from Pall Malls aplenty,
whisper names in unison with wind;
blowing up now, I hear her still.

I was here before, when she fell,
a falling without a splash, sound of nothing.
Heard her then…hear her now.

“I love you anyway,” echoes in my head.

I don't want it if you don't want it.
I don't want it just because it's something to do.
I don't want it because of pity.
I don't want it because of a sense of obligation.
I don't want it as a result of lowered inhibitions.
I don't want it due to boredom.
I don't want it if it pushes us apart.
I don't want it just because you think it's what I want.

I want it because you want it.
I want it because it is what you do.
I want it because of mutual respect.
I want it to be from a sense of devotion.
I want it as a sober thought and action.
I want it when we're too busy to think about it.
I want it to be as glue, a part that holds us together.
I want it because you know it's what we want.

It isn't a need.
It isn't a want.

It is affection and adoration and respect and understanding and a piece of me and a piece of you and the world and a living, breathing thing.

It is Love.
And so much more...



That's what IT is.

Sometimes the truth hits me
with a Hulk sized fist;
knocks me down flat on my back
without breath, hitching for air
reeling from the blow…
that’s gonna hurt in the morning.

Other times it’s a tap on the shoulder
or a word in the ear (Psst! Can’t you see?)
and a firm hand taking hold and
turning me right ‘round
“That’s the direction to go,
if you please.”

A firm hand and a whisper
works as well as the blow
and the bruising of ego
heals sooner
than later.