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A Year In Color: A Prose Poem

"Yellow is the first rays of sunshine hitting your skin."

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A Year In Color: A Prose Poem
Britany Hanks

Green

Green is warm, green is soft, green is content. Green is the cool grass in the summer that tickles your bare feet, green is the leaves on the trees you climb. Green is lime popsicles and sidewalk chalk. Green is healthy, green is growing and thriving together with the people you love. It is your soul when you are happy, when you are warm. It is the memories of humid nights sitting with friends, it is days spent cleaning, out with the old and in with the new. It is waking up on the last day of school, and looking forward at the whole summer you have ahead of you. It is waking up on the first day of school, with nervous jitters and new notebooks. Green is syllabus week and meeting your teachers, green is looking around at all the new possibilities you have open to you and feeling warm and excited. Green is the feeling you get when you see them for the first time, your mouth falling open in astonishment that someone could be so perfect. It is the first day you spend together, laying in the dark looking up at the sky through the soft green leaves of the trees above. It is the trees you see out your window, looking onto the familiar landscape of your home. Green is summer.

Red

Red is cinnamon spice. Red is the color of the changing leaves, falling to the ground and crunching underfoot. Red is the burning trail of heat their hands leave on yours. Red is desire, red is lust. Red is wanting something so badly you can feel it in your chest. But red is also love. It is the feeling deep inside your heart every time you hear, "I love you." Red is the flush in your cheeks when they smile at you. Red makes the tears fall when you’re so overwhelmed with emotion that you don’t know what to say, so you pull them closer in hopes that you can hug them tightly enough to show them how much you love them. It is a burning-hot intensity, it is loving someone so much it scares you because you feel as if they can’t possibly feel as strongly. It is their lips on yours, it is their fingers in your hair, it is their warm breath on your skin. Red is waking up in their arms and falling back asleep knowing you’re safe. It is sitting in front of a fire with hot chocolate, it is cheering at football games and wrapping your scarf tighter around you. Red is firm and commanding, but never wrathful or angry. Red is protection, the best form of security. Red is autumn.

Blue

Blue is when they look at you, disappointment in their eyes, when you tell them something you shouldn’t have kept secret for so long. It is how you feel when you look at their face and they are not smiling. It is when they leave- not quite when they are walking away, but when they finally turn the corner and you can no longer see them. Blue is when they pull away, it is the emptiness in your stomach when you upset them. Blue happens because you love them so much, but you’re bad at showing it. Blue is nights spent lying awake because your mind is too busy to sleep. It is staring blankly at walls for several long minutes, it is not having the energy to think. You cry too often and you love too hard, blue is the color you feel when you doubt yourself, when you forget why they love you and you’re too anxious to ask for reassurance. Blue is the color your lips begin to turn when you’re cold. Blue is when you imagine being without them. Blue is chilly rain, bitter wind, and hail storms. Blue is the clear sky to someone who is afraid of outer space, blue is the ocean to someone who is afraid of the unknown. Blue is empty, and icy, and void. Blue is winter.

Yellow

Yellow is the first rays of sunshine hitting your skin. Yellow is walking out of class after your last final, looking up at the sky and feeling freedom. It is warm and relaxing, it is just in view of summer but not quite. Yellow isn’t solid. It doesn’t stay right away. Yellow fades in and out, it starts out at a soft intensity and grows stronger over time. At first it’s a moment of cornsilk here and there, and over time it grows and develops into a solid daffodil week, and maybe then a few weeks of goldenrod. It is the color your hair fades to when the color you actually wanted goes away. It is telling people your hair was originally pink-- and them saying they like the way it has faded. Yellow was never your favorite color. But, in certain situations, yellow works. It is the color that makes your skin and hair look vibrant and rich, it is the color of happiness, highlighters, sunshine. It is the color of your favorite Disney princess dress. It is the color you never expected to love, it is lukewarm. It is not hot. It is just right, it is Goldilocks, it is your childhood stories wrapped up in a crayon, the one you don’t really love but you need to create the sunshine. It is the sunshine you feel when they smile at you, when you get a text from them, it is how happy it makes you when you first see them It is open doors, new friendships. Yellow is the start of something wonderful. Yellow is spring.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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