black to green

oranges sit in the wooden bowl on the counter, obscured by piles of dirty purple dishes. the scent of fresh blueberry muffins lingers above the oven. i consider decorating the pale yellow wall with postcards, their edges frayed, backs ripped where tape has been before. silty french roast coffee burns my tongue. i think of an hour ago, before the muffins, my eyes still full of sleep and stomach rumbling, an aching void in my middle. my mind is full of dark cracks on the weekends, the unstructured hours prone to let putrid vines creep in, squeeze my synapses, criticize my appearance, doubt myself. compare myself to ephemera that this behemoth city pretends is real. the vines creep through my skin, shades of bruised purple, black, yellow-green, orange-red. their myriad voices convince me i am inferior, that everyone knows. that everyone sees the dark flaw vines under the translucence of my pale-flour face.

how narcissistic to think they would care.

i want to embrace the vines. celebrate so-called imperfection, radiate light, voice uniqueness and vision. how difficult, at times, to see so much, without a funnel through which to filter it. i want to be honest above all, with you, gentle reader, with myself. and my best self tells me to write, to use my fingers, stretch my brain, break the poison vines until they recede, allow green healthy shoots to expand and flourish and nurture my thoughts. hot pink flowers burst in my head, expand through my ears, tangle in my hair. petals fall in my wake, and their soft pink light radiates around me, colors my gray streak with rosy light. the green tendrils will expand beyond my fingers, connect to the earth, exit my toes to reach for water in soil.

i move slowly through the earth like tolkien's trees. it is difficult to move, painful even, my wooden trunk cracking, breaking the rigid patterns that have upheld me for ages. i smell the churning dirt, the clear, clean air after rain in the desert, bringing a blue hush to the haze of nearby mountains. i see green bursts in the rocky soil. i will not tolerate thorns. everything is welcome to approach me: the wombat, the rattler, the man with the intolerable smell on the metro, bugs in his hair, red eyes, sores on his legs, mumbling indiscernably. i am not sure if the green can reach him, for i am not a healer. but i tell what i see, his filth i smell, making travelers dry heave and click through the interior doors to another car. i stand, broken, growing, with arms outstretched.