Color Poems Changed My Life.

I started the pandemic the way many people did, isolated with my romantic partner at home. In my case, it was my fiancé in the home we shared in Austin, Texas.

A few months later, I found myself two days before my thirty-first birthday, across the country in my childhood home outside of Boston. I had done an entirely epic (covid-safe) road trip from Austin. I was ready to head back to our southwestern casita but the future had something different in store. In a mere twenty-four hours, the future I had spent five years nurturing had shifted and uprooted with realizations that my fiancé and I were on very different paths.

I ended my relationship and did the only things I knew to do...

1. Walk through the emotional fire. Letting everything go, allowing all the grief and pain to move through me and metaphorically burn its own path. I like to think of it as a controlled burn — scorching the foundation of my world to turn what isn't healthy into dust. Allowing the ash to fertilize the ground and from it, grow new life.

2. Take trust-falls with the universe... and keep reminding myself that if I need to fall, surely the safest place to fall is into a bottomless weightless void.

3. Learn about myself, one color poem at a time.

See, it was during this phase of deep-reflection and reality-bending realizations that someone very special shared a process with me that they value deeply— writing color poems.

Recipe for a Color Poem

• Pick a color
• Pick a word or phrase that you associate with that color
• Make a juicy rhyming poem!

I tested it out, writing quick poems... Then, I began using color poems to dig inside myself. I wrote them to give voice to emotions. Specifically, ones I could only feel the faint murmurs of but knew had something to tell me.

The simplicity of the structure made it easy, fun, and accessible.

So the process began. When an emotion arose and I didn't know what to make of it, I would open a blank page. I would pick the color closest to what I was feeling. I'd pick the word that felt most alive with that color and I'd write, line by line, to find out what was alive inside of me.

Through my color poems, I discovered a world of complex experiences. I understood more about myself and the relationship I'd left behind. Reading the color poems that I've written is a journey through the rainbow. With my words, I wove a tapestry of my own human heart. A colorful catalog of what it means to love, let go, and come home to oneself.

I write all of this to inspire you to explore what colors might exist inside of you. I hope that you'll find them, explore them, and let them take you on the messy, colorful, rainbow journey!

<3

your messy rainbow friend

------------------ Color Poems from my Rainbow Trove ------------------

I am now over thirty pages into color poems. As examples of the process, here are two of my own...

Vermillion: Rich

I am vermillion rich,

the thick summer solstice season’s itch.

Ruby gem of July around my neck,

Lips that curve words that pierce warm and direct.

Rich with color, rich with sound,

A richness you will look for that will beckon you around.

Vermillion anchors in your life,

The threads of chenille fabrics to wrap up your strife.

The vermillion sheets enveloped in of lovers,

Vermillion in between my thighs, the blood of our mothers’.

I am vermillion rich.

A full heart pumping with life to live,

The richness that knows how to give.

An abundance of color, saturated and complex,

An expectation for depth and nothing less.

I am vermillion rich.

Rich on love, rich on flair,

A richness that takes time to come to bear.

The opaque curiosity of the something still unknown,

the richest awareness of how her inner child’s grown.

Rich in flavors and in touch,

The essence of everything plush.

The salty air of Cape Cod as dawn hangs in the sky,

Never one to withhold deep questions and always asking “why?”

The embrace of the mother, father, sister, soul,

Dancing when nobody is watching because there is so much to extol.

I am vermillion rich.

Lemonade Pink: Delight

I am delight,

The laughter sounds that keep you up at night,

The hot summer air,

Time that passes without a care.

Friendships that are fleeting,

While still holding perfect meaning.

I am warm and full of song,

When you’re with me, nothing can go wrong.

Everything is just right,

Because I am the lemonade pink of delight!

Give me a glass and it will always be full,

Write me a love song, on my heart it will pull.

Met with smiles and joy,

I am hard to annoy!

I’ll drink it all up,

From the bottom of that cup,

Until the last hour,

Savory and sweet, acid and sour,

So many different delightful flavors with power!

Oh yum, I am the lemonade pink,

The flirtation of a friendly wink.

The smell of fresh flowers and beach sand on your hands,

An essence of being that’s ripe to expand.

Come on over, hop in— we’re just getting started!

So much fun to be had when you’re feeling unguarded.

Nothing is a problem when you stand in the sun,

When it’s lemonade pink, the summers just begun.

Delight is on its way,

Regardless if you keep your excitement at bay.

It’s of no mind or matter,

There’s nothing here to possibly shatter.

Just endless potential for more and more fun,

While you drink up that pink lemonade till you’re done.

Midnight garden walks with your sisters,

Getting lost in the delight of your whispers.

The stories of what was and of what will be,

The things only lemonade pink can foresee!

Because it knows how juicy opportunity is,

When you’re indulging in the lemonade fizz.

Sipping while seated in that big brim hat,

When someone saunters over, just for a chat.

Happenstance we may say,

If things go our way!

Fate has that sensibility,

To open up availability…

Right when it’s needed,

Regardless of what’s proceeded.

With the lemonade luck and sun on your hair,

There will be an abundance of warmth for everyone to share.

So lace up your sandals and put sunblock on your face,

There is no time like the present, that’s ready for embrace.

So much yummy that is out there in this world,

When you delight in a lemonade pink twirl.

Cotton candy dessert—

Wipe your hands on your skirt.

Go for the ride girl,

It’ll all unfurl,

Just as it should,

In the only way it could…

With the sun shining bright,

In a delicious and decadent lemonade pink of delight.