blue is the color of surrender
by Fransivan MacKenzie
heavy with the night,
i lay into the sheets
as quietly as
the last breath
the casket takes
before it seals
another body
i remember
the sigh of a man,
still clouding the air,
while i shuddered,
i remember how words were
ice blocks in my throat
that wouldn’t thaw
like fanciful christmas towns
forever stuck in glass globes,
i knew
although i didn’t,
of course i did
but i was just a kid
and did not
and did
you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?
we read a story about that in
second grade and i was thinking
of that, of them, of those birds
flirting with each other ’round
the white pebbles of nile
as my body was taught freeze
and numbness the way we teach
potatoes peel with knives,
the way we learn the color of the sky
when we first receive
the gift of sight – so sudden,
so shocking,
so real, surreal enough
to leave you wondering if it has
always been there,
i stared
at the glowering blue walls
that housed the place
i was losing my innocence in
and they icily
stared back at me and
if they could speak like
i couldn’t, they would scream
fly in every language, they
would tell me to escape
this kind of death that
kills you just a little bit more
every day, they would command me
to scurry past my grave in the
making, this room, this goddamn
room and this, too well,
i know,
because years after that
fateful night, when i finally
start therapy, i walk into
the doctor’s office that silences
every atom in me. her walls are
cerulean like swimming pools
in mid-july and no matter the
season, or who i am with,
i still hear the same things,
the voiceless plead to leave,
to, by any means, run
and for a second there,
i find my shaky fingers
dialing the past back
to say please, it’s over,
you’ve won.
