Blue

Blue

The lady on the screen says “look at your wrist”

Hold your veins to the sun, examine their hue

Are they green? Then you’re warm-toned,

Cool tones run blue

As if I needed an expert in colour theory to confirm that

I am, in fact, blue

I know without looking

Strange, isn’t it? To think that the colour of my insides could have been

theoretically speaking

a whole different shade

Genetically predisposed to “blue”,

to err on the side of indigo, melancholy

Detached, depressed, not-at-home-in-your-body

blue

Strange, isn’t it? That blue conjures a weight

You say “I’m red with anger” or “green with jealousy”, but it’s always

just “blue”

Bare, without qualifiers,

as if that translates

Just “blue” lacks nuance, considering

things turn blue with the changing of seasons

considering

things turn blue for a number of reasons

There’s hypothermic blue, floating-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean blue, there’s

the shade of blue you turn after words you swallow

get stuck in your throat, when you expected I love you’s

to follow

Strange, isn’t it? That we apologize for colours we didn’t choose

“Sorry,” we offer, “I’m just feeling blue”

We veil blue with tinted lenses

to make everything more golden, like an old Super 8

Some blues can’t be concealed, some are too opaque

There’s static blue, neon blue—

the colour of the cashier’s hair that turn down the corners of my mother’s mouth

Manic blue, is what I’d call it

I bet she doesn’t apologize much

Mania’s on a tight schedule, see?

Not much room for apologies

The lady on the screen says I’m like a satellite

Not the colour theory lady, the other one

The one I pay to be listened to

If you turned out her pockets you’d see they were lined

with all my shades of blue

She says I’m lonely

“Orbiting without ever finding a place to land”, is how she put it

I picture UFO’s, the way they flash green

“Alien, aren’t they? Foreign-feeling”, I muse

The satellite analogy is more apropos than I thought, it seems

Of course I know there are peaceful blues, too

Not aquamarine, like my birthstone

Or a room with a beach view

Not robin’s egg, or cornflower

None of the shades you’d paint a baby’s room

Not peace like “tranquility blue”

It’s a peace by elimination, peace that’s only defined

by the absence of “x”

Like counting to three

and submerging your ears beneath the bath water

That’s static blue, like the hum of a DVD home screen

it’s only perceptible because it’s relative

we’re so accustomed to white noise

“The thing about satellites”, the lady says

Oh please don’t tell me that eventually

I’ll “come home”

I’m not the first to try to capture blue in its essence

Joni Mitchell, Kechiche, Yves Klein attempted

I’m not the first to proclaim that the first step of understanding

something is to give it a name

To refer to it with intention, to excavate it of shame

But after sitting with, welcoming back, wishing away blue for this long,

I remember my colour theory

Blue is never, was never “just blue”

If blue is a mixture of yellow and green,

Then blue’s combinations are unlikely to repeat

My blue contains multitudes, my blue is a teacher

My blue says look closer, it whispers go deeper

If blue is the deluge of unanswered screams

Then blue is a mosaic of fragmented dreams

“Blue” can be questioned, diluted, transformed

Blue is familiar, blue can be warm

I think of blue like swallows, soaring, sweeping

How blue is imbued with all kinds of meaning

“The thing about satellites”, she says

Is that they’re not in orbit forever

They have to land somewhere, eventually they’re tethered

I think of my blue and the shades its undergone

Blue that’s consumed me, blue that bore songs

Blues belonging to others that I’ve stumbled upon,

That made me feel understood, that said “I swear you belong”

If I do put down roots, if I do land somewhere

Blue might be in the soil, blue may hang in the air

I’ll build blue a room, and give it a key

Stay as long as you like, I’ll say

I like the company

N.E