The first box had eight colors
and no instructions for grief.
Red was for apples, they said,
as if blood had not already invented itself?
Red is:the notification I still haven't opened,
the lipstick I wore like an alibi,
the danger my mother taught me to notice before language.
Yellow was the sun,
as if jaundice, turmeric, caution tape,
and old gods did not live there too?
Yellow is:old turmeric under the nail,
a streetlight pretending to protect me,
the cheap brightness of sunshine-flavour optimism sold in bulk.
Blue was for sky, they said,
as if drowning did not also look upward?
As if a bruise was not simply the body
learning how to keep a record?
Blue is:some say, sadness,
but it's not sadness exactly,
it's the bruise of learning grammar to write the wounds.
Green was for grass, they said,
as if envy had not already rented a room
inside the chest?
As if mold did not know
how to make a home of what was abandoned?Green is:
mold on the thing you meant to become,
and moss on others who became that thing.
Black was for night, they said,
as if night were the worst thing
a room could become?
As if absence had no color
until we were made to sit inside it?
Black is:not death, but the room after everyone says “move on.”
Give me the broken crayon,
the one without a wrapper,
the one no child can name.
I will use it
to draw the door
and then misbehave my way through it.
~ Oizys.
