An Ode to Writing poems about the colors I love.

Writing poems about the colors you love,

is just dull and just nostalgic enough,

if you isolate gray thereof,

and recall with closed eyes the confusion, all of.

You realize that the discovery and fear

were in their own way erratic and rhythmic,

terrifying but necessary as looking into a mirror, a new identity-

a young boy dressed in drag and sarongs.

Perhaps, a poem excites me for its easy to be arrhythmic,

but an excellent one-man orchestra,

for a curious, confused 12 year old discovering in his bedroom alcove.

Writing poems about the colors you love

is just terrifying and just exciting enough,

if you isolate orange thereof,

and for a moment refuse to shove,

the thought of a sixteen year old boy coming out

to the friends who he shall love.

You ask if the boy recognizes

the threat of homophobia and rejection,

monsters devoid of sympathy and looming above.

Alas, the boy makes the leap

for he muses over both, the excitement and honesty of coming out to the people he shall glove.

Writing poems about the colors you love

is just summery and just ridiculous enough,

if you isolate red thereof,

and reminisce for the moment, the memory of your first queer love,

You ponder over the excitement of holding another man’s hand,

someone who makes you think of intimacy and a white dove.

You chuckle at your seemingly-delayed onset of puberty,

the surreal existence of teenage love in your university years,

inundated with all the firsts you could conceive of.

While you may now be twenty and single,

you can’t help but marvel over the novelty and passion of your first gay love.

Writing poems about the colors you love

draws you in just enough,

if you recall the story thereof,

and marvel over the experiences above.

The variations in my life,

from a closeted boy in the Middle East to a young, queer man,

explore and explicate the room

for excitement and joy as I finally embrace the rainbow, shimmering,

the infinite possibilities, meters and I let bloom

a truer identity that I love.