Seeing in Monochrome

She tucked her curls behind her ears

Arms stretched out ahead.

Her brush nicked her canvas

Cascading the previous white to red

She watched the colours intertwine

Into a vivid scene:

Yellow, purple, pink, and blue—

Crimson, fuchsia, orange too.

Once she looked back at the full canvas, she knew

This was her destiny.

Years passed by with more canvas’ filled

Profound was a term spoken in her wake,

But trekking upon this hill

Of her success

There was room to falter at stake.

The curly girl, who had her world

Between her fingertips and her brush

Had fallen in love,

While her lover was deep in lust.

The love of her life made her see

Every colour more vividly,

Under the stars,

Below the trees,

Her life felt more vibrant…

Or so she thought…

Her dream world had begun to dim,

colours dashing one by one.

When her favourite colour red began to disappear

She’d yet to know what’d be done.

The curly girl saw red as strength,

It brought energy to her being.

But her lover used that power differently

For control instead of love.

She never thought she’d see the day

Where red would be a thing of pain,

Where red would be dripped from her tender skin,

Where red would be a sign of what her lover had buried deep within…

She didn’t love red anymore.

And so, it went away.

She moved onto blue and green.

Once again painting on the canvas,

brush strokes wisping away

She looked over to where her usual red would have been but—

All she could see was grey.

She would tell her lover of her lack of red,

No longer able to see the rose in their cheeks.

Her lover scoffed and dismissed her

Their expression bleak.

“How could you not see red, don’t be foolish now.”

“It was when I lost my love for red—”

“Well, how’d that happen?”

“I… don’t know how…”

They sat in sullen silence.

The lover smirked slyly

“So you’re done with painting then? Good, it was stupid anyway.”

That was when the lover’s frigid envy

Took her green and blue away.

She peered at her bottles of colour.

Orange,

Yellow,

Purple,

And shades of grey…

A sigh left tired, scabbed lips

The concealer was barely enough to hide the developing grey bruise.

Again, she painted.

It was void of blues,

Void of greens,

Void of reds that she has grown to dread.

Then her phone dinged.

Before her was a picture of her lover with another girl.

Doing things, a lover shouldn’t do with another girl.

Why were they with another girl?

Why would they do this with another girl?

And that’s where her earth shattered

Her world of brilliant pinks and blues,

yellow, purple, fuchsia, orange, and crimson too.

All she could feel was the sharp pain of her lungs collapsing within its very cage.

The floor shook below her feet and brought her to her knees.

No energy to muster rage…

Nor envy—

Not even the ice cold will for revenge…

But what made the pain more insufferable

Wasn’t only that her lover was gone,

But what they took with them, was the colours she so loved.

With weeks that passed

Her curls a mess

Staring at the canvas again.

The colours she’d use to create her extravagant pieces

Were nothing but a blank, bleak, shell that stemmed from the outside in.

Everything was grey.

Her paintings.

Her relationships.

Her hope.

It was all grey.

She had scratched at her wrists praying that she’d see red again

Self-destructing so that she could return to what she missed

To what made her feel alive

What made her happy

What made her cry

Something that wasn’t the void of grey

Which she was destined to see each. and. every. day.

She turned to substances to see her beloved colours again.

They gave her a temporary, melancholic release.

It was almost funny in a way that you can hear a violin playing in the distance;

Almost euphoric from watching someone contort into something even they themselves can despise…

But it brought her colours back.

The colours she so loved.

And only for a second—

She could pretend like she wasn’t trapped in the hell that is herself.

That was until it went from grey to black.

Long term black.

The lost memory of what happened black.

Almost eternal seeming black.

Potentially permanent being black.

From colour to colourless her eyes fluttered open to bright white lights.

The dense mattress underneath crunching the curvature of her spine.

The grey still lingered on the walls around her and on her parents disappointed faces

“Nice...”

With grey gripping the lead role in her life in a choke hold;

Her addiction was that to her family and friends.

Trapped in a monochrome room with a person she didn’t know,

Didn’t give a fuck about,

Someone who couldn’t bring back her beloved hues

Of orange, violet, greens, and blues.

She sat there feeling blue…

The closest thing she could get to blue…

“You seem a bit blue.”

“Thanks asshole, I guess you do too.”

“I didn’t mean any harm—”

“Yet inflicted.”

“I meant I can see the grief that resides within you.”

She paused with a bite of the lip

The strangers grey, but somehow warm eyes were brightly lit.

“Now, I’ve been told you can only see grey hues. Is that true?”

With a hesitant nod she agrees

“How did these hues come to be?”

She travelled back to the reds, and the pain she felt,

To when she explained her pain to her lover,

To the text message on her phone,

And how she thought she was broken.

Like a toy on the shelf.

How she felt so alone within herself.

“So, is the problem you seek to fix within yourself? Or is it something you seek in someone else?”

“Myself of course—”

“Not quite, my dear. Listen close to what you say, and say it clear”

“I just want my colours back, my life I once had.”

“Have you taken a step back and try to accept the bad?”

“Accept the bad?!”

“Accept the bad.”

Disbelief crossed her face, the suggestion feeling worse than an insult.

“Trauma is not a simple feat; you cannot face these troubles alone.”

“How can I be expected to adapt when everything is now foreign to me?”

“You have had your time to grieve; feel anger, sadness and more, but once we work towards your acceptance, you’ll realize more’s in store.”

“What’s more than my colours? My art? My hope? My dreams?”

“The power of human will, no matter how hopeless everything seems.”

She paused for a moment and reminisced how she grieved

The crying,

The avoidance,

The anger,

Letting the world crumble beneath her feet.

But was there ever acceptance in seeing her hues of grey?

The beauty of the monochrome?

Its uniqueness in its craft.

When losing her lover, she felt she lost herself.

Sunken in a world without colour,

But with a closed door comes the opening of another.

The young artist took off from the room with a newfound view.

She returned to the spot she previously knew.

Disregarding her desire for colour, she took the paints and closed her eyes.

Across the canvas her paintbrush flew.

After a moment she came to see,

The monochrome painting that came to be and she grinned.

Months passed with her monochrome lens.

Which is now seen as a blessing instead of a sin

She still knew deep within she longed for her colours,

But didn’t need them to be complete.

She walked down the grey riddled street;

Wandering eyes scattered to meet a flower in its bed.

She walked over to the plant, admiring its beauty

Then she realized she saw a muted red.

A smile spread from cheek to cheek.

It was here she knew,

Everything was going to be okay.