A World Without Color

I wish there were a way, sometimes,

to take away the color from the world.

The bristles of a painter’s brush could

gently sweep, surround, embrace,

all things;

like a masterpiece created in reverse.

I’d take away all color from the world, and I would let it dry

For a long time.

A very long time.

And then, a day would come,

when knowledge of time passed was privy only to the stars

And we had long forgotten

what it meant to judge a thing

that looked a certain way

A time —at last—

where value wasn’t placed upon

the patterns on a flower,

the brightness of the moon,

the pigments in one’s skin

I would return the colors then and watch,

for the first time in living memory

Humanity embrace the pure joy of color

A joy that carries with it no malice, no cruelty, no bias

And people then, I think, would finally understand

The purity of color

That it holds no room for hatred

That color is, in all its forms,

Beautiful.

I’d take away the color from the world

And then I’d give it back