A Darker Shade of Light

A time ago, yet longer still

A child sat alone

She watched the others dance on by

Their colours unlike her own

Theirs were vibrant, full of light

Yellows, reds and blues

Nothing like the lonely child

Shrouded in darker hues

She longed to play amidst the colours

To laugh away the day

But no one cared to let her in

Her colours, they said, were grey

She tried to match their colourful nature

A toll was even paid

But when met with only trickery

She saw through the masquerade

She accepted her ashen disposition

Her tears drying on her cheek

From the safety of her grey refuge

A promise she made to keep

No more would others see her tears

Her dark walls rising high

Her hope for colours locked away

Behind her bright blue eyes

Was her future monochrome?

Where did she fit in?

A girl misunderstood

The rope she walked grew thin

A time passed, several years in fact

The girl had now grown

She was no longer such an innocent

Her blackened shell cut to the bone

The good and the bad, friends came and went

An outsider she remained

Her ink blot like nature

Their colours, it did stain

She still tried to change her colours

To mix up something new

To figure out what was wrong with her

Perhaps she could become blue

Or perhaps a softer shade of pink

Like other girls her age

Even a bright yellow

Something to subside the rage

Her cloak still dipped in shadow

She wished she understood

Why she couldn’t be accepted

Why she was different beneath that sullen hood

The war raged on within her mind

The demons proving strong

Those of doubt and weakness

Of how her colours were wrong

Was her future monochrome?

Where did she fit in?

A girl still unaccepted

Her colours quickly fading

Again, we move, further through the years

A woman now instead

She’s worked and lived beneath city lights

But that lack of colour still plagues her head

It haunts her as she sleeps

And in her waking thoughts

The seed of doubt planted long ago

Her shade of grey long taught

Her desolation deepened still

A mask of colour adorned

Hiding all the tears and cracks

The darkness now had worn

Being in a room of people

And feeling all alone

The silence oh so deafening

Once she’s back at home

Was she now just monochrome?

She did not fit in

A woman unaccepted

Even from within

I look back now, on my past

From that child so misled

To the woman I’ve now become

And the silent tears I’ve shed

It’s taken many years to see

My true colours shine

To understand I was not wrong

But simply colour blind

I did not lack in colour

Like others often said

It’s true, I’m not as vibrant

That doesn’t make me dead

My colour is full, deep and rich

As dark as it is unique

A crimson red, that is my own

My colour not discreet

If I could go back to my young self

I’d tell that girl to own it

To get back up on her feet

And in their face have thrown it

There’s nothing wrong with being different

Of not matching competing hues

If you spend your life under others

Your life you tend to lose

It’s not easy, it never is

I still struggle everyday

To remember to love who I am

To put those doubts away

There are days where I fail

Many days, in fact

But that is part of who I am

And it’s when I choose to act

I love my quirky, geeky nature

For movies and for games

My passion for dark story telling

Unapologetic and unashamed

There is no one like me

I’m my own shade of red

It’s time to turn the page now

The journey is still ahead

I am not just monochrome

I don’t have to just fit in

I just have to accept myself

To love the colour within