I am purple, not blue, not pink

Mornings I wake lilac, my face raised to the blue washed sky

Yellow sunlight beats me as I walk and I fade to a dusty shadow

Inside, in cool, artificial beige rooms of bland smiles and empty words,

I deepen to eggplant, solid, unobtrusive, silent

The flow of voices, evidence of life outside my thoughts, wakes me

in bursts of moss and grass

Sunset rescues me from the world

and at home, I am amethyst

Regal and joyful, awash in a rainbow

he loves her

the girl in grubby pants

with dirt and a sneer

on her angled face

he wants to love her

to dress her and woo her

and make her his queen

he loves his vision, not her

he loves her destruction

Today was cold,

snowy and barren-bright.

The sunlight, wan,

the floor too cold on

bare, pink toes.

Today was a day for

fluffy blanket and

hot cocoa in my favorite mug

with the green pine boughs

twined around the handle.

But it was missing its warmth,

the unknown something

that gives the day its joy.

And then my friend writes,

my dearest dearest,

and I find my smile.

I can feel my bones through fevered skin

and it reminds me how soon this touch will pass,

my ears will not hear the whispered voices,

my lips will kiss only dark earth,

and all the flesh of my body

that I have hated, gained and lost over my life,

will abandon me in the end

and leave only bone, thin and cold

with unblushing cheekbones and empty eyes