You used to be green. Throbbing upwards, you lifted the palms of our feet while embracing our heels and toes. You smelled like the sun if it was swallowed and breathed out so we could inhale it. You used to be Green.
I used to be red. Throbbing upwards, the blood flooding my veins like an angry river released from an old dam. Each wine-stained drop running like a horse freshly freed from reins, blinders off, remembering the natural sway of her strength in full unhindered gallop. I used to be Red.
We used to be yellow. Throbbing upwards, the light spraying out like a hose eaten by mice the night before, catching the gardener by surpruse in the face on a hot day. The mist betraying the truth of light -- that it contained every colour, creating quantum rainbows now equally entangled in the flesh of the gardener, the sky, the water, and the soggy soil. We used to be Yellow.
But now we are white. Paling and capturing none of the light, we fearfully reflect all of it away lest we burn.
We took your Green and suffocated it with concrete so we could drive quickly over it because we are busy. We are Busy. We don't have time for green.
I let my Red fade. I forgot how to Dance. I forgot that my shoes and pants and tight belt and tight collar and tight hips blocked my circulation. My veins adapted to be small and efficient. I needed to Work. I forgot the taste of presence as I swallowed what would keep me awake to do what I didn't want to do to make enough to be free... to dance again. I forgot what it all was for. I let my red fade.
We killed Yellow. We stopped smiling in public. We feared the hose, lest it spray. We didn't even risk turning it on anymore. We boxed ourselves into comfort at the expense of everything. We put our parents in nursing homes so we could focus on our Work and stay Busy... so we could forget that we killed yellow. We got used to calling it the way things are. We renamed Death, calling it Progress.
