My Body is Nobody's Palette

At first it was everything from ivory to ebony

Untainted against all the lights and shadows life gave me

Until he came and brought the key

Everything was done in the name of love

But what is love, really?

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Then it was red

Blood reminded me that at least I was still alive

It was red like roses

Unless there was nothing beautiful about it

It was red like stop lights

But back then I wasn’t aware of the danger

It was red like fire engines

Unless there was nothing brave in this

It was red

Because I was everything but brave

Then it turned green

My skin was a forest

My eyes waterfalls

The more I cry

The more my wound multiply

With pandemic damp moss spread all over me

The sanity in me shrinks

The green became purple

I decorated the ones on my sleeves with pearls

And adorned those under my eyes with shimmers

I have mastered the art of covering what you have damaged

Your sharp exclamation marks tattooed beneath my skin

Apology kisses staining around my lips

As for the painful grip—how tight is right?

Every morning I washed myself

But the bruises and your traces remain

It was my worth that drained

Scars do not heal

They just turn much more subtle

Go much more deeper

You shouldn’t cling into the past, he said

If you don’t forgive me you’re a monster, he said

I shuddered as I smiled

If I’m a monster,

Then what does that make you?

But wounds do not speak

They just fade

Before everything went black

I was afraid to close my eyes

For when the world was silent

My mind became the loudest

The wildest

The angriest

The saddest

Because I was helpless

It was like a screen shutting down

An episode finally ended

Excruciatingly longer than what was planned

My life is what happened behind the curtain

I carry the shame with me

The ruins I got from him

The stigma that lasts

The cracks from my past

But I am whole

Glad that my hands could eventually reach out

Grateful for the hearts that reach me in

Now it’s orange

A sun rising

A sun setting

It will rise again tomorrow—first thing in the morning

I know that the sun holds better things

And when I can finally love again one day

I will love like there’s no yesterday

Now it’s orange

Orange of truth

Orange of optimism

Orange of warmth

Orange of courage

Now it’s orange

And I’m not afraid of colors anymore