What an unexpected, nearly expected surprise. I am glad that you have made the decision to inhale new memories with me and to fall, despite the fact we will end up a splatter of melted crayons on a canvas of cracked white earth. How else did you think we were going to leave our mark on the world?
Many years before we met, or at least before we are meeting anew now, I was a Never-Quite-a-Child. A rare breed, these children were. Back then, you see. They were a kind that was to be looked passed and frowned upon; a kind that was a crime against nature. If we are being honest here (which I hope we always will be. Lies are the dull wrappers on crayons, trapping the alluring spectrum of colors that can be seen underneath), the breed has grown into a sizable amount of drunkards brats, teenager's bastards and world-riddled orphans. Since we are not to the point of common knowledge, the sharing of our souls, I will skip which I am for now. That is a topic for later; the after dinner conversations.
These children (or shall I say we) are Wanderers, Losers, Needers, Keepers. We are Wanters, Givers, and Unconditional Lovers. We are the ones forced to grow up out of our pink ballerina tutus and our worn down Spiderman shirts and dive right into our mother's tight, too-high heels and our father's long brown khaki pants with a briefcase bruising our thighs. Results of circumstance that never got the chance to stay down for more than a moment on the ground of children, piled over one another to get the pink, the blue. The red.
.gif)
Do not misunderstand me. I wanted to be a child as much as the one on the playground is. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, the going or coming, the ebbing and flowing, we as children don't seem to recognize difference. A black crayon is black, a white is white. Brown, brown. The colors are an assortment all pointed towards your own design. Your own demise.
The patrons, the benefactors of a Heavenly Hell must have seen a darkness in my bones. The marrow the deepest set of charcoal colored wax with the word 'Crayola' scrawled across a brown wapping. As a Never-Quite-a-Child, I was set among a life where forced growing pains and loud night fights were burned into the brain of my three year old self. Survival of the fittest. Stay small and squander or stretch like a weed and master desolation.
Crayons weren't a part of my beginnings. They were instruments of creation I underwent as children my age, older, younger, chose colors and assigned them a place on a blank space of remade tree. I made a game of crayons, where each person was a singular color. My father was blue. Calm, caring. Wise. My mother was red. Passionate, original. Loving. Two primary colors that usually mix quite well, but in my own life as a Never-Quite-a-Child, it turned out otherwise.
People have constantly changing colors. At one point, my mother was the entire rainbow. I won't psychoanalyze that one for you, I am sure you can make your own assumptions. Some remain the same. For as long as I've known a girl, she's been olive green. For as long as I've known a boy, he has been both light and dark purple. Romantic, nostalgic, gloom and frustration. What changes most is us.
Being a Never-Quite-a-Child, no matter the changes of Crayola colors, I still see her as beautiful. Him, shattered pieces held together by a mask. We are all the colors we have ever been. And despite the fact that I grew up too fast, that I filled in the space where others should have nourished, I plunged into the use of Crayons and defined myself as a color. What, my dear friend, is yours?
No comments:
Post a Comment