The Color of Grief

When you lose a part

of yourself you kept

inside someone else,

the world is matte, your

awareness drifts from the

opulence of color to the

inky ache of its absence

Grief is a receipt,

is the longhand of

short time, is the bright

blue spark and sore gray

ache of memory we try

to catch like bubbles

on our tongues

Someday you’ll hold

it to the light, make

it tell the story of its

missing, trace the long

kaleidoscope curve of

its vibrant edge and

beg its accounting

Tell me again about

the reds, the wild blaze

of green, please, the way

a yellow can hold you soft

as sunlight, how deep purple

felt against the slick skin

of innocence, I beg you,

give me back what I was

too callous to hold

and it will slip, obsidian

back into darkness

revealing nothing but you –

right now –

hands sticky with

shadow, awash in perfect

color.