incite
GOLD IS YOUR COLOUR I’m sorry that you don’t feel valued. I’m sorry that you feel like they don’t see you. But it’s funny isn’t it? That in thinking of all the possible reasons why they won’t give you their time or their thoughts, you give them yours. You use all the paper and all the ink you can find, turning thoughts into time as you write down why they won’t even pick up a pen for you. You write about how you are in their hands in an attempt to write them out of yours, but the pen you chose has their name on it. These are your things so why is their name on that pen? Thoughts, time, things. Thoughts, time, things. Thoughts, time, things. Thou Precious like gold. That’s what those are. Yet, here you are giving them up like they aren’t worth more than gold, on a person who can’t see colour. I mean, I can understand why you do this. My fingers are stained blue, too. You give, and you gave up all your gold, because that is what your heart is made of; it’s a blessing and a curse. Gold is valuable so people simply take. I’m not surprised. Who wouldn’t take an incredible person’s everything?
I wish that I could tell you how much people want you. They may not be authors but they have written chapters and novels and fairy tales in which you are the hero, the villain, the sidekick and —
I dipped my hands in ink for you. But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because clearly you can only see what you perceive. You haven’t used any ink on yourself, so how can you read anything with clarity? You haven’t written down the reasons why you are lovable, or bled the page with why you are enough. I see that ink bottle sitting in your hand, and that paper beside your bed. I see you reaching for the ink to text them why, but I don’t see you asking why you let them dictate your value. How much time, thoughts, and things have I used up on you? x
ART by LAUREN STEMPSKI CRAWFORD WORDS by BIANCA MODI
109
STILL
The thing is that people don’t know what to do with that much gold. You can’t even be mad at them — they don’t understand what they have never learnt. Meeting a person who radiates the shade of the sun, whose life has so much essence that it warms everyone, is a privilege. Sometimes, privilege can be scary when you haven’t learnt the value of it. Light is scary, especially if you’ve been surrounded by so much darkness that you don’t understand anything but. Walking away is easy but that means you have to close some potential doors. Sometimes, this is not the colour they seek, but that doesn’t make it less precious. Gold is still gold even if someone doesn’t care to recognize it.
