It’s a Thang

What color is sorrow?

Is it black, grey, cracked, broken?

How do you describe it?  If it’s sorrow from grief, it’s colored with the memory of loss. If it’s the color of regret, it’s all the opposite colors of the rainbow if those colors exist, I don’t know how to name them, but you’ll know. If it’s the color of shame, it covers you like a blanket that keeps you from moving forward. It becomes skin with a zipper that can only be opened by the one wearing it. It’s Houdini’s straight jacket under water and only you can escape of your own free will and some skill and some luck. Don’t give up, keep going, just keep fucking going.

When did you first skin your knee as a child? Isn’t it glorious, if it came from play and fun and courage and bravery and no fear. It’s total joy! A scab that grows over the fresh wound, with a prayer over it in the shape of a Band-Aid and Bactrin, that’s what represents a parent’s love and care, isn’t it? Or maybe sometimes it’s your own love for yourself.  Remember that time when you found out pillows can be used as a sled indoors? That went wrong after a while, you dove onto the gold velvet flattened pillow to slide across the avocado-colored carpet lined with brocade curtains…it didn’t turn out the way you wanted, rug burns on your cheeks and the corners of your eye. You realized in that moment that joy can sometimes burn and the memory of that will always be displayed in your second-grade school photo. Good times