Empty

I should expect my life to be empty. The only constant companion of the past eleven years is the cast of characters in my madness; everyone else wisely stays away. When I wrote "Colors," I was severely delusional: I believed in my own ability to connect with other people through poetry, speech, and other forms of human contact. I was wrong. In the language of "Colors," I struggled to see green and black: a new day in the company of new people. All I see is white, a new red, a streak of yellow down my back, and the blue of old beatings, fresh beatings, and current anguish. Robert Johnson wrote the blues, and I take him as my guide. He left only his art behind; no family, no community, and no friend claimed his body or his legacy. Perhaps someday I'll die by the highway side, and catch the same Greyhound bus into white uncertainty that took Robert Johnson. I will sit next to him, and we'd both know the pain of art that never quite seemed to match life.

COLORS

White is the color of uncertainty
as it offers light opaquely
an absolute abstraction of value
in a world made for shades of Grey

Yellow was my color
before I switched to Black and Blue
I ran, but now I fight; I found it suited me again
for the struggle with myself in the Red sunrise:
too scared to let go
too frightened by the beauty of Red.
in hindsight, the Red was probably Yellow, too
sometimes we can’t tell the difference

my Yellow guided me to safety
away from the pain of Green,
the color of spring
new life, and sustenance under Red at dawn

Black is the color of certainty
it covers all light with the absence of color
Black steals light, and life with it.
no Red, no Green, no White
and thankfully, no Yellow
just the end result of all colors
and efforts: collapse of light
when there is no more work to be done
and no fuel for our flames

I can see Black through the Grey
while I hold on with desperation
to the White that leaves me knowing
nothing but a mix of colors
that looks like Yellow,
but I will not take safety again.
give me Black before White
give me Green without Red
I need to know the dark green of the forest in spring
before the crinkled yellow of old paper, once white
now strewn with unread Blue ink.