The Colour of Sadness

yellow

She's off from the land of rivers that run yellow

And golden sunsets

With raven haired heads and obsidian eyes, sun kissed skin and rough hands

To a place

A place with rivers that run icy blue

And seasons that bleach the land white

With heads of pale gold, snow-white skin and eyes of frozen cornflower blue

They are beautiful

More beautiful than she'll ever be

Because gold shines and it's victory and glory and all things perfect

But black is darkness and strange and ugly and foreign

That's what they tell her anyway

But they have read far more than she

And they speak in these articulate, fancy tongues

Curling letters she can't seem to make sense of

So they must be right

After all,

White is pure and innocent and pretty and clean

And yellow is the colour of urine and dirt and disease and spotted pages

So it was right for them to look at her the way they did

Sneer at her the way they did

Mock her the way they did

She wished her hands were elegant and smooth like theirs were

Gloved and manicured

Not rough and full of ridges

Veins rising to the surface and nails brittle

She wishes her skin was powder pale too

Not tanned and dark

A weed amongst the pure lilies

And so she washes

Scrubs at the dirt on her skin accumulated over the years

Drinks bleach till her tongue forgets what it means to speak

And replaces it with letters that wrap their tendrils over her tongue and keep her from calling out to her hometown

She drinks from the fountain of forgetfulness

Forgets the colour of her people and the sunsets back home

Forgets the way those curves and lines of ancient characters made her feel like she belonged

She's someone new

She's washed herself in the rivers of cold blue that grab you and drown you

And when she goes back to the banks of the yellow river

She realises

She doesn't look the same

She's not the girl the village loved

She doesn't remember how to speak in their secret codes

She's forgotten so much

She's changed so much

She does not know who she is

She regrets it

But even washing herself in the rushing rapids of the yellow river

Won't paint her skin yellow again

She's snow now, through and through

She's lost herself

And her heritage

The one she was fighting so hard to protect

The one she went to the far-away lands for

She mourns

For the death of the yellow skinned girl