The COLOR:

One cell - life, bursting forth.

One cell now is two, changing course.

Two cells become many, changing, and new.

Growing into complexity, this one that is two.

Two hearts beating slowly, together, in time.

Unaware of each other, yet connected, sublime.

Sharing a bloodstream, a home, and a pulse.

Shared sounds and inputs, watching time pass.

Two hearts, four hands, and so many cells.

Becoming aware, feeling beyond themselves.

Four hands reaching out, instinctively touch.

Two hearts that will share so many and much.

The same to all but the keenest of eyes.

These two yet know nothing of beaches or skies.

Or separation, isolation or being alone.

Their path is unique, yet each other is “home”.

They emerge to this world of mono’s and “I’s”,

Unaware they seem different to external eyes.

Strange by the virtue of being the same,

They look deeper and ask “But what’s in a name?”

Questions begin, as they muddle, confuse,

The people around them, who struggle to muse,

What “I” means when two start out being just one,

And what is the difference of finger and thumb.

Yet the question that started to swallow them whole,

“What is the color of my unique soul?”;

“Who am I really, when nobody knows,

If I’m A, B, or C, or the path that I chose?”

Surface is shallow, and tells little truth,

About the nature of selfhood, or what is uncouth.

External self is a chimera, a trick and a ruse,

As temporary, fleeting and sick as a bruise.

My life is a blank page that I choose to write,

And the style that I choose is my birth-given right.

It matters not who I kiss, how I dress,

To anyone but my own heart’s confess.

“Who am I, then, if my skin doesn’t tell?

I guess I’m my values; that speaks of me well.

I choose to define me by the actions I take.

By the way I treat strangers, and the choices I make.

“That is my color, my flavor, my spark.

Why are they still stuck at my lip beauty mark?

My hair, I dye red so they know it is me.

Yet my true color lies so much deeper to see”.

Color it seems, is the real test of time.

When we go deeper, the color’s sublime.

The skin it is fragile, and subject to tricks.

So futile these actions to change, cut and fix.

Color, to me, is the essence of things.

The depths, and the magic, the musical strings.

Quote me a poem that makes your heart fly,

That is more truthful than lashes or dye.

If only all could be twos and not ones,

They might see more simply, that meaning it comes,

From the things that we do, and we feel, and believe,

The things that we hold within, up our sleeve.

Identity knows not of surface or time,

We all know our self-hood, the hills we would climb.

Our self is really the pearl to be cherished.

I look to the world when the skin can be blemished.

The shell can be different or exactly the same,

Yet the self is sought deeper, without any shame.

When “Who are you really?” is a question to ask,

We stand willing to connect and bring down the mask.

When identity shines and color is sought,

Deep under the skin and it cannot be bought.

This is the view of the one that is two,

To share this in hope it will blossom with you.