𝐌𝐘 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐊 (miscellaneous pieces)

Gray

{i'm working on liberty or death, folie à deux, and for the longest time, but i've had a rough several months and am in the process of getting back up to my normal speed}

I've always looked at the world as being like a kaleidoscope, full of light and always changing. One minute your life is bright crimson and your friend's is sunflower yellow, and it suddenly switches to forest green and sky blue. The mailman who comes down the street once a morning, Monday through Friday, is lavender some days, but cinnamon and orange on others. The old lady who lives on the corner may be cotton candy pink on Friday afternoon, but by Sunday morning have changed to a gentle indigo. The world is always changing, spinning, and moving, but in organized chaos.

I used to be a part of the kaleidoscope. I was cornflower and lime and freshly-planted violet and peppermint. I thought the glass was half full of ice cold lemonade, sitting on a small table in the backyard on a warm afternoon.

But now I feel less like a part of the picture.

I feel like the one looking through the kaleidoscope.

I think that the first time you look through such a device you are baffled, confused by the moving shapes that are reminiscent of the things you see when you squint your eyes too tight or stand up too fast. We are often young when we meet a kaleidoscope for the first time.

But the odd thing for me is that I've seen the kaleidoscope of the world thousands of times, and yet I can't understand it.

I feel gray-black, standing still in my old piano teacher's living room on a rainy afternoon in early spring. It's not like the comforting kind of rain, it's cold and unwelcoming, back in a time that I preferred the sun. The lights are off, and I feel like I'm younger, but my appearance is that of now. Dark hoodie, dark jeans. Dark tennis shoes that look like they could be right out of 2054. Medium hair shrouding my face, a thousand songs stuck in my head being drowned out by the rain. And I'm fascinated by the kaleidoscope. But I'm also scared of it.

The comfortable thing about being gray-black is that you don't have to worry about change. You can let other people worry about such a scary thing when you are stuck in your constant state of being half-asleep. Sometimes sky blue creeps in, raising my heart rate and causing me to worry about unimportant things. Sometimes the black takes over the gray, making me sink lower and lower. Sometimes there is a bit of yellow, maybe even some dark blue or some leaf green. But it's mostly just gray. Nothing. Numb.

I won't say that feeling this numb doesn't feel bad at all. I feel out of place around others that are moving with the kaleidoscope, because I am moving slower. There are days when I want to move as fast as the others, to jump in the colored glass, but the gray-black is holding me down, like a shadow.

How do I let go of the Gray?

I've been given yellow, green, and dark blue paint and a paint brush to drown it out, but it's like trying to paint over oil paint with watercolors. There's a thin residue of the bright shades on the outside, but all it's done is give me the appearance of looking okay. I'm still dark on the inside, and I don't know how to scrape off the paint.

Although the weather outside on the day with the kaleidoscope is malevolent, I actually love rain. My paint may be oil-based, but the rain is mixed with a little bit of paint thinner; even hearing the sound of it coming from my speaker makes it a bit easier to fall asleep.

Although I may not be in my best state right now, my hope is that I can one day be like Alice and step through the Looking Glass.

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{i'm working on the other stuff right after i publish this, i promise. hopefully i can post more often after stuff dies down}