A Fighter's Blood

They say black is a deep, dark void

the absence of color

the stark, emptiness of life.

I say it saved me

when my colors bled out on the street

A rainbow hue, dripping into the metal grates

Sunset palettes, pink and pretty,

Orange, green, poppy red,

Leaking, pouring, staining

the blacktop they flowed over

My veins, absent of their color

Turned black, scrolling through me

Dark vines of nothing,

Winding, twisting, gunmetal-gray

The vibrancy of the past already a murky

Seeping oil slick, it’s sickly rainbow skin

Emptying from me

As I lay dying on the pavement

The good ones rushed me to the bed

Stuck a needle in my arm

A tube to the needle, a bag to the tube

Dripped fuchsia, crimson, aquamarine

Told me to hold on

Don’t give up

You’re going to be okay

But I knew the colors pooled,

A river of melted crayons

warped and flowing below the streets now

A saturated, teeming bayou of life

Buttercup yellow, lake blue, passion purple

All gone, finally run dry

Black matte drab in its place

This morning I open my eyes

The bag is empty, depleted

The colors just a memory

The crook of my elbow bears the small scar

from where the needle tried to force

away the darkness

and failed

I close my eyes in the scorching sun

The dancing shades behind my thin lids

will tell me the truth:

The black is only a placeholder

A temporary absence

The darkness, a reminder

that whatever filled the space before

belongs there and will return