all color in a day

red:

when i was two my birthday party theme was

red

and my mother went all out. i can only remember

through photographs, an elmo poster and

red strings of mardi gras beads, red frosting

staining my lips

orange:

a few months ago I made a list of things that didn’t seem

to be anyone’s favorites

i had never met anyone whose favorite candy bar was milky way.

whose favorite band was maroon 5.

whose favorite color was

orange.

and then it was everywhere- a soft orange tank top

clementine colored platform crocs

and even though i still couldn’t stand the taste of it

for a moment i let orange be my favorite

yellow:

in high school i was ill. but i was also

desperate to fit in, eager to be known,

spent every day with a carefully crafted image

branding myself as best i could, but i was sick.

my brain was tying itself up into knots on the daily

and i was only getting worse, but that brand i created?

to be the happy go lucky, the cutest, most adorable?

i told everyone her favorite color was

yellow

green:

for most of my childhood,

i assumed every boy’s favorite color was

green.

after all, cameron’s favorite color was green,

and he was the only boy that mattered to me

I thought the same thing about my dad, listing his favorite things

he likes helicopters, legos, and the color green.

eventually he broke it to me that he was

blue-green colorblind.

blue:

the easiest way to determine the things

i didn’t like as a child was to figure out what

my little sister did like. there’s a whole host of movies

that i’ve still never seen because she liked them,

foods i didn’t eat for years. colors i wouldn’t wear. like

blue

because blue was her everything, and we

became a binary. my shoes pink, her shoes blue,

my coat pink, her coat blue

and when we moved across the country

my parents found the perfect house where we

each got our own rooms, pre painted

my room pink,

her room blue.

purple:

it’s no secret that when people like

purple

it’s more than just their favorite color, it’s a way of life

and my grandmother is the same way

the color of royalty, she says

and it’s true in her case, there’s no one

more deserving of the association

pink:

i cut off all of my hair when I graduated high school

i still don’t know how i got the nerve

making such a drastic change. and when I showed my

coworkers, one of them said it made me look like a lesbian

and i didn’t know she’d turn out to be right.

but it only took another two months before I cut it even shorter,

dyed it hot

pink

and moved to a new city

a new person

white:

raised in the church, not just any but

the church, I was baptized in all

white

time and time again, dressed for purity and

trained for marriage in all white

but I never made it, and I

won’t wear white to this day

black:

the first girl I loved loved

black

dark curls, dark eyes, and dark humor,

she was my opposite in every way

and I don’t think I ever told her that she was

scientific proof that opposites attract