I am not a Rainbow, but a Kaleidoscope

Nothing worth fighting for is ever easy

and we came out fighting, red knuckled

and fleshy pink, the yellow light catching

where our stomachs met our mother’s.

Embossed into cherry, thin skin

stretched across the plinth of the neck.

For you were just a speck birthed

into the universe, and aching for change.

Pride is not a character trait but a colour

translucent and radical like a banshee hurling

it’s voice into the wind, where it meets your window.

Indifferent at the suggestion of your difference.

I know there has been cloud filled days

spinning and threatening, a treaty of grey.

Hey, you made it to the road, not forking

but a splitting choice, each its own.

You say, I struggled. You say

I was silent for so long until the blue

clawed between the clouds and you

whistled out loud to a new truth.

There is power in the lilac, the teals

and oranges. For when I find my head

cocooned by a drab day I can look up

at that flag and say I am proud.

I am not a rainbow, for I did not come

with ease. Instead, I’m a kaleidoscope

extended with colours. The flecks of the

million tiny memories, circling and seen.