It was supposed to be about going back and trying to understand this city again. But for some reason, everything seemed different and less… colorful. This city has become strange. All of a sudden, it’s full of boundaries and locks, and I am a trespasser in a stranger’s home.
But the thing about colors, I’ve learned, is that they come and go. And for every utterance of never and forever, the punishment comes with another stroke of gray. And as that paintbrush pushes you forward, your back bleeding against the rough canvas, maybe- just maybe- you’ll be the one adding that bit of color.
Besides, what’s wrong with it? Why are we so scared about not having colors? It’s almost like that fear I once had of that room in my childhood home, which for some reason became a lair of ugly monsters and bedtime nightmares long after the sun set. Like that fear I had looking down from top of my high school gymnasium’s set of bleachers. Irrational enough to make one scream but passive enough to be neatly tied into a little knot in my never-flattening stomach.
No, the fear is not for the lack of colors or the lack of light even. The fear is stems from not knowing what is inside. Perhaps I should have gathered the courage and looked. Perhaps I should have jumped down like all my friends.
But the fear.. the fear is secondary. I simply wish I could go back. To note shadows and bracelets and the alley cat. To have that freedom to keep moving, as though this is where I belong, as though I know these passing faces, as though this fabric is embedded in me, underneath me, through me.
I am scared of strangers. Of the monster in the box. And more than that, I’m scared of becoming a stranger.
That era of “finding myself” is probably over, though I officially have 11+16 more days as a teenager. The excuses have worn out, the philosophies completely dissipated, the photos even have faded. This is it.
Electroconvulsive therapy- hell, I thought they outlawed that shit. What better way to treat Childhood, right? No, I’m cured or at least, I will be.
