Blue, Pink, Grey

Blue, Pink, Grey

The strangest thing I’ve seen her do is build a sky on her own. She took a piece of paper and a blue crayon and started coloring from the top left. She colored diagonally, and when she was half-way through, I thought she’d stop and pick up a different color to finish. The sky’s never all blue. Sometimes a little red seeps in and it can look beautiful and at other times, it’s white, full of clouds, as if it is a clean slate for you to look at and reboot. It blushes pink sometimes because there are so many poets constantly flirting with the sky. And sometimes, the sky sees people for what they are and goes grey.

The shy’s never all blue – so of course she’s stopping to pick a different color, I think. But then she pulls up her sleeves and gets right back at it. A little color rubs off on her skin because it’s moving so often, back and forth, on the sky. I watch her do that and I think, do we take a little bit from our art just like art takes a little bit from us? Do our poems and paintings teach us how to be god in exchange for us teaching it how to be human? Before I know it, she’s colored most of the paper in blue. There’s just a small triangle left at the bottom right.

Then, she started saying random things, almost as if she was praying – “the skies are open right now, maybe it’s easier for him to hear me” – “please help” – “what do I do, I need to do something” – she says and I realize, for the first time ever, she’s facing a crisis. Her sky has always been blue and this is the first time she’s seeing a new shade. She’s only 18, after all. Young and innocent.

I see her do these strange things and I just
fall
in
love.

And I think that’s how you fall in love with people. You see them do normal things like steal and use your toothbrush and you think – wow, they’re just like me. And you see them do strange things like building skies and you think – wow, they’re so different. And in those sometimes-human and sometimes-god things they do, you find your reasons to love them.