Pastels On Paper

PASTELS ON PAPER

I am like pastels on paper - warm colors that soothe my ailing psyche
I am draped like white lace - hiding the many truths hidden in the wrinkles of my face
I am the false optimism, the shared hope professed by family and friends
I am the wintergreens
The lavenders
The creams
And every other shade in between

I am like pastels on paper - warm colors that trouble my already ailing psyche
I am dehumanized
Denied my rights
To speak
To think
Or live my life peacefully
Stripped of all my dignity
I am bland, meek
my spirit, weak
I am naked, unclothed
my soul, exposed
I have become the broken dreams and the empty promises
Made to me
I am the marigolds
The peaches
The creams
And every other shade in between

I am like pastels on paper - warm colors that neglect my troubled and now wounded psyche
I am that petty idiosyncrasy that initiated the dispute that spawned your outburst of negativity
I am the broken glass on the floor
         the shelter in which I seek every time you speak
         the incoherent beat of my heart
         the shortness of my breath
         the many hues of blacks and blues
         the unending stretch of silence
                   after the fall of thunder and the spark of lighting
         the chalk that now outlines the end of my brief existence
I am the wintergreens
The lavenders
The creams
And every other shade in between

I am like pastels on paper - warm colors that neglectfully blinded me of my severely wounded and troublesome, but now bleak reality
I was a man and a woman - joined together in holy matrimony
I once was the marigolds
The peaches
And the creams
Now I am just a gray shade
In between