All that Remains

Of Colors and Questions

Red

Bright, impassioned, and powerful

I've always loved red; wanted to live dressed in red, to find it, touch it, use it, burn bright and strong. My mother lived with auburn, embers in her hair. I run my fingers through the soft locks as it loses its color, dulling with age. Still warm, still beautiful.

Can you burn bright with only an abundance of started papers and unfinished stories? With delicate glass? Diamonds?

I fear that I will run out of papered-skin stories to burn before I make it anywhere. These words fly out from under my fingertips, and when I finally stop, that is when I don't know what I did, or what I will do; with my writing or with my life.

Breathe in. Wind tosses my hair around, swirling delicately around me. I open my mouth in a big smile, or a silent scream, I'm not sure. Some hair flies into my mouth, and I start to choke, to suffocate.

But no. I'm supposed to drown, or burn. I don't choke on the smoke that comes from the flames that surround me, because I've grown up with it, so why would I choke now?

It doesn't make sense.

The way I peril is when I get a little too adventurous and dare to touch the flames on all sides of me. Or when I drown in that water that someone uses to douse the lights, trying to save me.

But then, my paper skin would be weakened, fall apart at touch, no matter how gentle.

Would I choke on the smoke if I tried? If I filled my lungs with such spoiled air, could I go that way?

Or would I have to feed the flames brighter, and use my own paper skin as kindling for that to happen? Rid myself of some of my stories and history just to keep myself bright and strong? Would my glass heart be safe, already scuffed and a little cracked, or do I need to cage it safely in iron rod and steel? If I left, would my diamond tears by borrowed by others and never returned to mourn my silken soul, or would everyone already have enough tears of their own?

All I want is to be able to reach my hand out and touch the colors I see. I want to pull my hand back to myself and see that the colors of the world sit in the palm of my hand. The same colors I see everyday; I don't just want to see them, I want to be them. Imagine how well diamond tears would mix with glorious, sunny golds, or cool, icy blues. Imagine that I could be the color red, beautiful and powerful, not just surrounded by the warm flame? What would it take to be all the colors myself? To feel them cover me, and mix with my own skin? To feel blue paint dry on my lashes as I cry, or to see the life green under my nails after I plant flowers in my garden, giving, giving, giving life, drained of my own?

But I take too much. I take take take take take. And can never give enough.