I AM LIGHT I AM LIGHT I AM LIGHT

“Anxiety is red. Not the dark red that my mom likes but bright red like stop signs or an emergency exit that I can’t seem to find. Red like ink marks all over a paper you thought you did well on. Red like I bit my lip too hard and now my mouth tastes like blood. Depression is blue. The kind that is mixed with a little bit of grey. Blue like the color of the clouds right before it rains and you can’t find the sun. Blue like it is starting to get dark outside and you can’t tell where the sky ends and the ocean begins. Blue like the eyes of someone you used to love. Love is yellow. Not the kind I hate that is too bright but the soft kind. Yellow like sunlight pouring through an open window onto my skin. Like light yellow daisies. Yellow like the faded pages of old love poems.”

Say alone. Forty times. Pair it with the desert. Say it.Alone. Alone. Alone. Say the words plain, she says. Say it plain. Say it outright. Don’t get poetic. Say I. Say me. Say I am alone. Say your age, she says.Thirty-six, I say. Say it, she says. I am thirty-six. Own it. I am alone. I am thirty-six.

“What is it that the child has to teach?