comfortable silence- a collection of poems

mantis shrimp

You asked me once,

"Why are you so attracted to me?"

And I had to pause for a moment.

"Good question," I said,

"I think it's because I don't know how to place you.

You see, love,

I've gone my whole life

Placing things in boxes.

Meticulously, conscientiously, sedulously

Categorize. Categorize. Categorize.

Thursday feels

like cobalt feels

like 7x7=49,

I don't understand why.

My mother always felt purple,

a deep, longing shade of Sunday morning,

'Get dressed, get up, we're leaving,' she'd say.

My name feels orange.

I don't like orange.

Grocery stores feel like tea green,

and the restless uneasiness of 63-degree weather-

it's too warm to go out with a jacket.

It's too cold to go out without one.

I meet new people and place them as a color.

Yellows are louder, charged and frustrating.

Greens always care too much about the people around them.

Orange is angry.

I don't like orange.

But you,

I can't box you.

Everything about you is the personification of lethologica,

It's on the tip of my tongue

it's there, I feel it,

the way you walk is familiar,

the way your eyes flicker isn't foreign.

I know it, I know how it feels,

I know the butterflies, I know the sideways smiles,

I know the desire, I feel it too much to call it new.

But my internalized color wheel

is too focused on spinning my head silly

to think about what shade of pink this may be.

My mind is too busy

with watching you talk with your hands

to worry about things

like what number of syllables you have.

I'm too wrapped up

in the utter perfection of your smile,

the warmth of your presence,

the warmth of your lips pressed to mine,

the warmth of your arms around my waist,

the warmth.

Remember our conversation about reincarnation?

I didn't tell you then, it slipped my mind,

I must have been too focused on the soft curve of your smile.

But I decided

I want to be a mantis shrimp.

Humans have three types of rods for processing color.

Red. Green. Blue.

Mantis shrimp have sixteen.

Maybe, somewhere within the thirteen

my eyes can't yet process

I would find

the right one

for how I feel about you."

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