What shade would you give giggling?
What particular tone most represents tickling?
Is laughter a burst of sunshine yellow
coming over an unexpected horizon?
I think heartache might be a kind of bruised purple,
or, when it’s really bad,
the colour of flesh torn and oozing blood.
Tears are clear,
but sometimes their emotional source is anything but.
Fighting with those I love is a cold and steely gray,
oft immovable.
But making up with a friend is an adorable fuchsia,
and making up with a lover feels like a hot and sexy pink
full of reignited joy.
Loss is the utter black of a bottomless hole
from which there seems to be no escape.
Depression is a hopeless, murky emptiness
yearning for any colour at all,
but pushing them all away at the same time.
Hope is the vibrant hue of a breakfast orange,
freshly cut and sparkling with promise in morning light.
Although the pale brown of a warm and flavourful caffé latte
is a close second,
especially when it’s too early to get up.
Forgiveness is the blended colour of our hands
as fingers once more intertwine,
or of our arms wrapped around each other in a hug.
Sex is the crimson of sultry lingerie and full lips,
or a deceptively innocent, nippily white tank top,
a lovely two sizes too small.
For me, a good relationship starts out as happy, iridescent bubbles
lifting us up.
As familiarity grows, it becomes the faded, comfortable blue
of a favourite pair of old jeans,
the kind that you’ll never give up,
no matter how torn they get.
Intimacy is a verdant, lush jungle green,
rich and deep and worth fighting for,
and hiding many treasures.
Virtue is the whitest of knights
and sacrifice is imbued with the glimmering gold of heroism.
Home is an earthy brown in which we can sink our roots.
And what colour is love, I wonder?
It’s so complicated and messy.
It can feature laughter as well as tears, loss as well as hope.
Today we’re a pretty pink and green together,
tomorrow a mellow yellow tinged with relaxing pastel blue,
the day after a rainy, blah, cloud-gray with intermittent shards of iron
and next week a raging, fiery red-orange of blazing passion.
Well, I suppose that love must be all the colours of the rainbow.
