The
director's called in,
tetrachromacy in reverse
Said my calls only wake up when your frequency hits
The first time you left in my kitchen
The walls bled sudden,
vermilion,
your green hoodie turned actual green
I dropped the coffee mug just to watch
the brown spread real across the floor
You thought I was clumsy,
I was just seeing God for the first time
Every day was a new color unlocked,
your lipstick taught me red
Sunset on your shoulder taught me gold I kept saying,
look at that sky
You thought I was romantic,
I was just terrified the pigment would leave with you
Then you packed your reds and your golds into suitcases
Closed the doors soft like you were trying not to wake me
And the world snapped shut like a broken kaleidoscope
Grey on grey on grey,
a psychiatrist says it's conversion disorder
I loved leaving took the rides and cones with it Funny,
I finally see clearly when everything is ash
I tried dating after,
took girls to the same rooftop Same sunset,
still look like newspaper left in rain
One kiss meanedness, that's why I was crying
I told her the sky was beautiful,
she believed me It wasn't,
I buy paint like a junkie now
Titanium,
white,
ivory,
black,
paints,
grey-filled canvases the size of our old bed
Gallery calls them,
minimalist masterpieces,
they sell for red money
I signed them with the only color I remember your
name in the corner scratched raw with palomite
They keep asking for a colored piece,
I tell them I'm waiting for the right muse
Truth is the weight and became the sentence,
life in greyscale
With one memory,
an ultramarine burning a hole behind my eyes
So I paint the world the way it is without you
Every shade a missing collector,
say it feels like drowning in winter,
right?
I hang them in rooms full of people who still see red
And I stand in the middle,
colorblind and homesick For a country that only existed when your
purse was close enough to borrow If you ever walk past one of my shows
For the biggest canvas,
all black except one violent streak of cobalt in the top left
That's the exact blue your eyes turned
the last morning you said you loved me
I mix it fresh every time
from memory
And it still hurts like the first day
The world lost its only reason to bother with color